A gangster's paradise
by motherafrica
Summary: Kevin used to be in a gang back when he was Kevin Eleven the delinquent. Now when he crosses paths with them again he gets mixed up in their dangerous world and has to keep his relationships with his loved ones from crumbling whilst maintaining his reputation as a plumber.
1. Chapter 1: A blast from the past

**TOBETSA peoples! this is my second Ben Ten fanfic. I just have to say that**** this story about gangsterism, so I'll try to keep it as**** 'clean' as possible. Anyway here's chapter 1. Please read and review.**

Chapter 1: A blast from the past 

"Hey Ben, watch out! and get off of there, I can't see!"

The blast from a stolen laser gun was heading for Ben but luckily for the early warning swampfire jumped in the air and flipped backwards from the hood of Kevin's car to the roof. The blast melted the windscreen of the car to which Kevin exclaimed out loud in anger.

"Thanks Kevin" he said in his alien transformation. "Don't thank me; just catch him so you can get off of my ride". Yelled Kevin out of the open space left by the now non existing windscreen.

The streets of Prosperity City, far away from Bellwood were fortunately empty on late Sunday afternoons which affirmed Kevin's belief that he had carte blanche to drive around on the highway like a mad dog. Gwen was sitting next to him on the passenger's seat typing away furiously at her plumber issued laptop, trying to find out where the guns came from that Argit had stolen. Argit was riding on a hovering steel mechanical horse in front of Kevin's car who was in pursuit of him, with a black sports bag strapped around his body stashed with the illegal guns and, realising that he couldn't evade them any longer, he started throwing the guns out of the bag and onto the street of which they exploded. Kevin, who was driving at full speed behind him had to dodge the guns exploding.

Suddenly Argit turned into a narrow alleyway and Kevin turned his car to follow him. The velocity of the car turning sharp 90 degrees threw Ben off the roof and he went flying…

"Dammit! What are we supposed to do now", I can't catch that traitor when I'm in this car!" Kevin yelled.

"You won't have to, there's a fence coming up ahead of us, in front of the parking lot of a warehouse and Argit will have to stop, I checked the components of his mechanical horse which, by the way _was_ stolen from the Forever Knights, and it can't go intangible" Gwen said typing on her laptop.

And soon enough Argit on his steel horse, made a sharp halt and Kevin immediately slammed his foot hard on the brakes. Argit at this time had already abandoned the horse and was climbing easily over the fence to a closed off warehouse, aided by his big rodent fingers.

"Get back here you scum" said Kevin jumping out of the car with Gwen behind him as he absorbed the green metal of his car and continued running.

"C'mon Kevin, what have you got against me, were pals right? I have to get this deal done or I'm done" he said spewing his quills at Kevin as he made it over the fence for which Gwen blocked with her manna.

"I'm sorry, how many times have you scammed me again?" Asked Kevin sarcastically as he smashed the fence with his metal hands.

Argit started running full speed for the fence on the other side of the parking lot to get him to the street but Kevin morphed his hands into a giant hammer and nailed Argit on the left of his body and he fell to the ground...

_The door to the closed off warehouse stored with old arcade game machines remained closed as it had been for years, but the prying and greedy eyes behind them were as present as ever, their eyes all over the walls watching their prey outside hungrily, waiting, observing, and understanding their target._

_ "Yes, this is very interesting…"_

A tired Gwen and an even more tired Ben as himself finally caught up to Kevin who was busy handcuffing Argit's hands and binding his feet with his hologrammed yet unbreakable cuffs.

"What happened there Ben, where did you go when you went flying off of my car?" asked Kevin.

I… (breathe) almost, hit (breathe) a street lamp so I (breathe) transformed into Big Chill and went intangible to avoid hitting it, then I had to run here as my ultimatrix timed out" he said out of breath.

"We'll at least we got him" said Kevin confidently with a satisfied look on his chiselled face. As Kevin started looking around to get his bearings straight, he couldn't help but notice that the place seemed quite familiar. Everything from the fence to the closed off white warehouses, and the face brick houses that lined the other side of the street opposite the fence.

"I'm impressed at how fast you run, Kevin" said Ben interrupting Kevin's thoughts.

"Please! If he weren't a freak Osmosian, he would have never caught me" said Argit.

"Freak, you're a talking space rodent, and I'm the freak? Confiscate the gun he fired at us, and then we need to find out where he stole those level 4 guns". Ben shot him a disapproving look; he wasn't used to taking orders from Kevin as he usually called the shots.

"Kevin please, you need to let me go, just this once, I have very important dealings with people who don't play around, I mean, have you looked around any?, doesn't this place seem familiar to you?" asked Argit with fear now evident in his voice.

"Not my problem, bro," he said lifting Argit up and backing him up against the fence blocking them from the empty street, although he felt a little uneasy about Argit also realising the place was familiar to him, which was never a good sign.

"We'll need to go back for the guns he threw in the street for evidence and take the mechanical horse as well" said Gwen. "I'll go call the plumbers on my ultimatrix for suspect and evidence pick up" Ben said walking away.

Kevin looked down at Gwen who had a confused look on her pretty face, "Something wrong?" he asked Gwen.

"I just don't get it, how many times has Argit been arrested and yet he somehow always gets out, I mean, is it the interstellar justice system to blame or corruption…"

"No way, the interstellar justice system is completely solid; we may have to check out the prisons and their wardens though, they're not entirely reliable as we've seen in the past with Morgg in the Null Void". "Don't worry Gwen we'll get him this time" he said reassuringly.

She looked up at him and smiled warmly and he returned her smile and placed his arm around her shoulders as they both looked into each other's eyes for some time, momentarily forgetting where they were. Both had agreed to keep their professionalism around each other while on plumber business but it was proving to be quite difficult. fortunately Ben's voice brought them back to reality.

"Hey guys my ultimatrix isn't working, I can't call the plumbers for pickup" He said confused. Gwen and Kevin both took out their plumbers badges and tried to call the plumbers.

"Not only that but, there's no signal on these badges and _no wonder_, there offline, no they're switched off! Said Kevin also confused.

"How's that possible, neither the badges nor the ultimatrix can be switched off, not from an outside source anyway" said Gwen.

They all stared at each other perplexed and they felt a little uneasy. "I told you, it's them they're coming for us, YOU'VE DOOMED US ALL!" yelled Argit in full panic mode trying to hop away from Kevin.

"Well, well, well… you've finally caught on haven't you" came a sinister voice behind them. They all slowly turned around. Kevin felt his stomach tighten and he froze completely. "_Oh my God, It can't be..." _he said in his mind.

Sheer horror befell them at their sight of eight of the biggest, most terrifying men they had ever seen. Men who didn't look like they were human or alive anymore, they were emotionless creatures; their hearts hardened by a lifetime of exposure to hardships and violence. Their eyes had had their souls removed a long time ago; there was no sympathy evident in their eyes, there was nothing but darkness in them that no light could ever reach. Their faces were covered in scars, scratches and their 6 foot bulging bicep frames added to their tough exterior. They wore black from head to toe with bandages in some areas of their bodies that looked like it was covering their burned looking skin. They were all bald and disturbingly, some of them did not even have fingernails, as their hands were also covered in bloodstained bandages. But this wasn't the most disturbing thing about their appearance but the charred and chipped charms they wore around their necks on silver chains.

Ben, Gwen and Kevin took in their terrifying appearances and froze in horror as Argit started cursing under his breath.

"What the fuck are you all staring at? You look like you've just seen the devil, especially you… Kevin" said the one evil-looking man with red skin and a mean looking snarl in a deep monotone standing in front of the pack. "Both Ben and Gwen looked at Kevin when his name was mentioned, their faces still frozen in shock.

"Kevin…", Gwen whispered, "How do these people know you?" she whispered to him, her voice quivering...

*** Well dats chapter 1... I'll try updating as soon as I can although It might be a little difficult since I'll be writing exams soon because it's nearly the end of the school year here in the ZA. Please review. Thanks. **


	2. Chapter 2 : The Futha

Chapter 2: The Futha

Kevin didn't respond to her or look at her; he just stood where he was stiffly, narrowing his eyes at the intimidating man in front of him.

"Yes, Kevin tell your fellow officers how it is that we know and you know us" he said unsmiling.

"I don't know you, I never did… not in this way, _what did you do to your skin Iggy_?" said Kevin regretting that he had used the man's nickname giving away that he did in fact know him.

"You like it? We burned our skin with industrial chemicals 'imported' from the planet Gula and shaved our hair off so we can't be identified by our DNA, or at least it will be a lot harder to identify us if they ever do catch us that is" he said casually.

They all shivered at the gruesome details of what he said. "Those chemicals are illegal, you need a court document to attain them from that planet" said Gwen finally having the courage to speak to the man.

"What are you gonna do, arrest me officer?" he teased as he noticed Kevin clenching his fists.

"You're sick all of you, you've lost your humanity" he said disgusted.

"Don't be so pompous, if you had stayed with us you would be exactly the same, partner…"

"Partner" asked Gwen and Ben simultaneously. "Don't pay attention to him, he's lying" said Kevin.

"Listen here, Kevin Eleven, nobody knows you better than I do, and I know this new good guy act you have going on won't last long, so don't think that you're better than us now that you're on the other side of the law, you can't deny your past, what we did together to get what we wanted".

"Shut up, you don't know me anymore; I don't associate myself with thugs like you" said Kevin angrily.

The scary looking man made a swift move and pulled out a gun from his pocket and pointed it inches away from Kevin's face while his other thugs pulled out their own unfamiliar looking weapons and displayed them in the air hungrily, waiting for command...

Kevin threw his hands in the air in surrender position, while Ben involuntarily slapped his ultimatrix but he realized frustrated, that he didn't turn into anything as it was still switched off,luckily Gwen covered Kevin's head with her manna, protecting him.

"You dare disrespect me?" he said waving his gun dangerously in Kevin's face "You see these charms around my neck here, these are all of my family members that I had to kill to join this group, don't make the mistake of thinking that I won't do the same to you, just because you were like family to me". The trio all looked at the charms around the man's neck and could see that there were names engraved on the charms hanging from silver chains around their necks, names of the only people who had ever cared about them in their former human lives, it was an eerie sight. "NOW TELL THEM WHO WE ARE" the leader in front yelled to Kevin losing all patience.

"Gwen, Ben this here is Igazi one of the top ranking members among these guys here called 'The Futha' Said Kevin sourly. "Who are 'The Futha' whispered Ben afraid of the answer. "It's… It's, the name of the gang that I used to belong to when I was still…"

"Kevin Eleven" finished Ben shaking his head and remembering a time when Kevin was the biggest menace he had ever encountered. Gwen stared up at Kevin in disbelief who looked away from her, his heart heavy from the confession.

Igazi looking satisfied, lowered his weapon and turned to Gwen staring at her in the eyes. "If you ever interfere again, I'll end you too; I really do enjoy redheads, and their _soft hair, soft skin, ohhh_…." He said creepily that left his mouth-watering.

Gwen shivered at the way he spoke to her in his low creepy, _wanting_ tone, and Ben clenched his fists in anger, but before Kevin could react to how his girlfriend was being threatened, another disturbance came from behind them, it was another voice. "...going on here, where are the laser guns?, we have a schedule to keep…

A ghostly pale looking female with a light blue dragon like tail hanging down from her coccyx and a mean looking face, wearing shoes with the thinnest heels and nothing more than a navy jumpsuit that clutched to the curves of her human-alien hybrid body, made her way through the crowd of men and stopped when she saw who was standing in front of her.

"Aahhh Kevvy long time no see" she said in a sickly sweet voice, walking up to him and smiling deviously.

"Ravenna?" said Kevin surprised, "I thought you were dead".

"I am dead baby, I died a long time ago" she said touching his broad shoulders, "so why are you here? Come back to join us again"

"Actually he's a plumber now, along with these two here" said Igazi looking amused now.

"Shut the fuck up, this motherfucker is a cold-hearted ruthless, greedy killer"

"No Revenna, I just deactivated his plumber's badge along with his fellow officers, look here" he said showing her the device in his other charred hand.

"Well, what do you know you're on the other side of the law now" she said circling around him "And look you've got yourself another bitch, a preppy rich girl from the better side of town" she said smacking her hand on the badge attached to Gwen's uniform giving her élite high school away. "It doesn't look like she can fuck you better than I did" she said teasingly and playing with Gwen's hair who, for the first time looked angry.

She's lying I never slept with her Gwen, don't believe her, Ravenna what are you playing at? Said Kevin furiously which made Ravenna chuckle and wink at him.

"Anyway, where are our laser guns officers? She said to Kevin, serious faced now.

"Argit destroyed your precious guns so he wouldn't get caught with them" Said Kevin looking satisfied now.

"WHAT! THEY'RE GONE! YOU BASTARDS, GET THE RODENT SO WE CAN GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, WE'RE IN SERIOUS SHIT NOW!" she yelled to the other thugs who pushed past Ben, Gwen and Kevin, and grabbed Argit who fell so they dragged him on the floor and walk away with him.

"Please Igazi, it's not my fault, they made me destroy the guns" pleaded Argit who was almost in tears.

The undeniable sound of bone being broken filtered through the air. Igazi had just smashed Argit's head into the hard asphalt floor and blood dripped from his temple. The trio stared helplessly as Argit lost consciousness making it easier for him to be dragged away. "Guys, we have to do something, they're getting away" Ben said quietly so only Gwen and Kevin could hear him. "No!, you'll only make things worse" said Kevin...

The men started leaving in a hurry, walking fast into the warehouse and climbing into a ship with the engine roaring to life. Ravenna turned to Kevin once again. "This isn't over Kevin Eleven, you owe us now for destroying our priceless merchandise" she threatened, now also walking away.

"We can't let you take Argit, he's under our arrest" said Ben stepping forward bravely.

Ravenna turned around and shot Ben with a single shot of her small gun and he fell to the ground on impact, Kevin felt as if his heart would stop, everything happened so fast: Gwen was screaming and fell onto her knees next to her cousin, Kevin tried to catch Ben falling but all he could do was hear a women laughing in the background running away and winking at him, "say hello to your daddy for me" she said spitefully leaving Kevin staring, disillusioned in her wake.


	3. Chapter 3 : Reflection

Chapter 3: Reflection

"Oh my God, Ben, BEN? He's bleeding!"

Gwen couldn't hide the hysteria in her voice as she propped Ben's head up with her arm and knelt down next to him. Ben was lying on the floor howling and writhing in pain and clutching his left side as blood seeped out of his black shirt.

"_Gwen, help me_ _please" _Ben whispered. The begging and desperation in her beloved cousin's voice made her want to cry.

"Quickly Gwen, tear a piece of his T-shirt off and tie it around his wound and press hard on it" said Kevin struggling to get Ben's signature green jacket off as Gwen scrambled to do what he said. "Now, keep lifting him up, I'll go get the car" he said running away, "Hurry!" she yelled after Kevin. "Ben?, Ben! can you hear me? Please stay awake, I'll get you some help, I promise, Ben"

He uttered something inaudible as he slowly drifted in and out of his sleep.

"I'm here Ben, stay with us" she said. Kevin pulled up to them and jumped out of the car and picked Ben up from the ground while Gwen opened the back seat door and Kevin placed the almost unconscious Ben into the car as they both jumped into the car again and Kevin raced away his mind still trying to sink in what had just happened as he pulled up to Prosperity Academic Hospital, with everything still a blur in his mind. When they got to the hospital Gwen jumped put of the car and summoned the nearest paramedic who deployed her team and got Ben on a stretcher and raced him through the somewhat unkempt hospital with Gwen and later Kevin running along with them."Will he be okay?" she asked frantically."I don't know ma'am but if you would please be patient, we'll keep you updated when we can". Gwen stopped where she was and watched them race away with her unconscious cousin...

After a few hours, Gwen was sitting in the waiting room of the hospital in Prosperity City when Kevin, who had just talked to the doctor, came to sit next to her. Gwen was looking down covering her face with her hands and her curtain of hair while Kevin sat down and looked at her helplessly. She was visibly shaken up by the experience, they both were. He didn't know what to do, should he talk to her or leave her to calm down. He finally garnered enough courage to place his hand on her back and stroke her. "The doctor said he'll be fine, he's in surgery now to remove the bullet from his diaphragm, but he has lost some blood". It was a while before she said anything...

"I don't know what to say to you Kevin" she said softly unable to keep tears from falling down her face still looking at the ground. Silence lingered in the air again before Kevin finally replied "Gwen, I—"

"Why didn't you tell me that you were in a gang?" interrupted Gwen with her tear-stained face.

"I didn't feel like I had to, I wanted to leave that life behind and start over, and I was afraid that you wouldn't trust me". He said softly.

"But Kevin you know I wouldn't do that, Ben and I gave you another chance because we knew that you wanted to change by your own will and not because someone told you to do so, _you're_ the one who didn't trust us and now look! My cousin is lying in a dingy hospital in some rotten city!" she said raising her voice which attracted some onlookers around the waiting room.

'I'm sorry Gwen" he whispered finally. The guilt he felt was eating away at his insides, and so was the sight of her anguish.

"That won't change anything now, I still have to explain to Ben's parents why he won't be home tonight, and we still have to inform the plumbers about all of this that happened here today".

He sighed heavily "That's another thing… I don't think we should tell the plumbers about this"

"What? why not? We have to! how can you even ask that".

"Gwen, you don't understand how lucky we were to have escaped almost unscathed"

"Except for Ben!"

"It could have gone a lot worse, believe me these guys don't usually leave plumbers alive if they found them interfering in their business, and calling more police will only make the situation even worse, we can't tell the plumbers about this just yet".

"Don't you remember that one of them said that they'll be back (she didn't dare mention the woman's name) Which means that they'll be back for us and telling the plumbers will guarantee that we'll get them for good and we'll be prepared"?

"No, Gwen please listen to me", he said gripping her shoulders and turning her body towards him in her chair. "we are going to get into even more trouble if we tell the plumbers now, this gang goes further than just the guys we saw today, there are dangerous people in higher places controlling them, people who are not afraid of law enforcement. This is bigger than us"

"Please, you're just trying to cover your own skin from being in trouble with the plumbers"

"See! This is exactly why I didn't tell you and Ben that I was once in a gang, you'd treat me like I'm still a bad guy and a criminal, and no matter how much I proved that I'm not like that anymore, you'd still see me as someone you need to keep an eye on!, you don't know how much that hurts me!" he said also raising his voice now.

She looked up at him directly in his dark eyes, breathing deeply and shaking her head. "Is that really why you hid this from me? Because you thought that I would always see you and treat you as a criminal? Then you really don't know me at all do you? Is it fair for you to judge me and me not to judge you?"

He looked away from her defeated before saying "You once told me that you trusted me, and that you would try understanding what I've been through, and I'd like to think that you were being honest with me" he said softly.

"I do trust you" she said quickly and unconvincingly which didn't go unnoticed by Kevin

"Then please trust me now with what I'm saying" he said hurt.

She thought about his for a while before she said "...I can't promise anything, but I won't tell the plumbers, for now, we just need to figure out what to do"

"Okay here's what were gonna do then, we'll go back to Bellwood and I'll have Ben transferred to a hospital there tomorrow under a pseudonym so the universe doesn't find out what happened to the famous Ben Ten, then when Ben wakes up we can decide on what to do then okay?"

She nodded still not looking at him, he said "C'mon I need to take you home; you have school in the morning. Gwen sighed; school was the last thing she needed at this time.

As the two of them drove away from the hospital with the sky darkening,with a million thoughts going through their minds, and after Gwen phoned Ben's parents lying to them that they would all be spending the night at Grandpa Max's R.V, they sat in awkward silence for the rest of the three hours to Bellwood.

GWEN'S HOUSE

When they got to Gwen's house, she got out of the car and Kevin walked her to the front door. They stopped at the door before Gwen turned around and looked at Kevin.

"Kevin, I need to know something... that woman, we saw earlier today...who was she?" Kevin knew this question was inevitable.

"She's Revenna, also one of the top ranking members of The Futha gang because of her knowledge of alien tech... Is this because of what she said earlier?" Gwen didn't respond.

"I didn't have sex with her like she said Gwen, she was lying".

"But you did date her before you knew me; I mean who better than you to have taught her about alien tech". It was Kevin's turn to remain silent.

She took that as confirmation of what she just said. She turned around to go inside but Kevin held her arm and turned her around again, he held her chin and drew her face in for a kiss but before their lips met, Gwen turned her head to the side, dodging his kiss. This left him stung. "I'll see you tomorrow and I'll help you revise for the G.E.D, when you need me" she whispered going in, leaving him alone and dejected in the dim porch light. The guilt... threatened to destroy him... he hadn't felt like this since he ran away from home all those years ago... leaving his mother heartbroken... For the first time in so long he had a thirst for the bottle again...

KEVIN'S HOUSE

When Kevin returned home a little more exhausted than usual, he noticed the quiet house immediately. "Mom, mom?" He went to check upstairs in his room, her room the living room but it was empty. A frightening thought made its way into his head "_No way, they wouldn't_ dare _do anything to her _would they?" "Mom?" he said a little more desperately searching the living room mindlessly until he heard a car engine outside. He quickly ran outside only to see his mother stepping out of her car carrying files in her hand and a laptop bag on her shoulder.

"Hi honey, sorry I'm so late, I had to fetch some files for work tomorrow from a colleague and we got carried away talking! I tried to call you to explain but—

"Kevin interrupted her by running up to his mother and giving her a hug and almost knocking her off-balance. "Oh my goodness Kevin, what's this all about?" she said amused by his childish antics.

"I'm just glad to see you, especially after the kind of day I just had".

"That's funny the last time you ran outside to greet me after work was when you were four years old" she said embracing him also. Kevin looked into the forgiving eyes of his beloved mother, the most important person to him in the universe and the warmness they had, it melted his heart. "Here ma, let me help you with those" he said taking her laptop bag and files.

"Thank you dear, you're very helpful". "So how was your day today honey?,I figured you were pretty busy because you didn't answer your phone and I called you several times. Did you have any plumber business?".

"Erm… no we were just patrolling, it was a slow crime day". Kevin hated lying to his mother especially because they had both agreed not to keep secrets from each other since her divorce with Harvey Hackett but he knew what telling the truth would do to her emotionally and all he wanted was for her to be happy, she deserved that much.

"So why didn't you answer your phone?"

" I don't know,I must have been busy with Gwen at that time". Mrs Levin misinterpreted what he'd said and smiled dryly.

"Well Kevin I can't force you to abstain but at least I can hope that you too are being safe".

'Oh my God mom, that's not what I meant!"

"Anyway" he said changing the awkward topic, "I was wondering whether you would consider taking leave off work for a while"

"What, why?"

("_Because I fear for your safety when you're away from me")_ he said in his head. "Because I think, erm… that you've been working really hard lately and you need a break".

She walked up to him and Kissed his forehead affectionately, "That's very sweet dear but you know that I can't take leave from work now, I can't afford to be behind on my payments again and what kind of mother would I be if I was always depending on my teenage son to cover the bills for me every couple of months" she said softly and stroking his black hair.

Her words weighed heavily on his heart. He felt even more pressure now to be there for her as they had gone through so much together, from his father passing, to her remarrying which caused many problems, then having her only child run away at eleven years old only join a gang and land up in the Null Void prison, then the divorce of Mr Hackett, and now financial problems… he remembered what Max Tennyson once said to him on a camping trip years back... _"You're the man of the house now, so step up and take responsibility_". And now with 'The Futhas' back in his life, things had just become more difficult.

"I can't go back to my old ways, she really does work so hard for me to see me succeed in life and not be the problem child I once was". He said in his head.

"Are you hungry? I can fix you something now if you want"

"No, I'll just go to bed, long day being a plumber... patrolling the universe".

She sighed. "What's a matter?" Kevin asked

"Nothing… you just remind me of your father when he would come home after a long tiring day as a plumber, I swear you're starting to look just like him every day". He felt a lump swell up in his throat; she had never said that to him before.

"Goodnight mom" he said before emotions could engulf him.

"Kevin wait, what's that on your shirt?" she said pointing to a dark fresh stain on his shirt. His heart skipped a beat when he realised that it was Ben's blood that must have rubbed off onto the bottom of his shirt when he lifted him into the car.

"It's a bloodstain! What happened?" she asked worried.

"Oh that must have been from some other time".

"But I washed that shirt before you left this morning."

"Don't worry about it mom, it's just a small injury I have".

"Let me see the wound" she said already lifting his shirt.

"No! Just… don't worry about it, I'll take care of it" he said. "Goodnight" he said leaving his mother staring after him, concerned. He hated doing that to her but he had no choice, he couldn't let her know about his old gang, it would break her heart again. He finally went to bed unable to sleep with echoes of the day still haunting him... Meanwhile...


	4. Chapter 4 :Crisis

Paste your docum

Chapter 4: Crisis

On the faraway planet of Mecka outside of the Milky Way, inside a barren, dark and dirty basement, the eight members of 'The Futha' who had visited planet earth were gasping and screaming for their lives as they had been subjected to electrical whippings for the last few hours. "Now for your last punishment, 'PICK A HAND!" commanded one of the officials. The eight of them including Igazi and Revenna were approached by other members of their gang carrying pliers. "Say goodbye to your fingernails" said the official. Their screaming echoed through the basement of people who laughed and cheered until the creature in the shadows raised his palm to tell the other thugs to stop.

"I'm disappointed in you Revenna as first unit captain, you didn't get what I asked and we're going to war with our rivals 'The homicidal kids' any day now, do you know what will happen if we lose this planet to them?". He said calmly.

Revenna and the rest of the gang struggled to get up after their torture. Their fingers were bleeding and they were in excruciating pain. "What the hell were you thinking shooting Ben Ten? You could have attracted attention to us if the whole universe found out!"

"Sorry, 'Sir' bu—but we neeed—ed to distract him and… his friends like K—Kevin Eleven" she said stuttering as she curled up on the floor in pain.

The man stopped at this and said "Kevin Eleven? I forgot about him… I haven't seen him since he tried to kill me… Here's what you're gonna do, you're going to get the rodent fixed, then bring Kevin Eleven to me, I have a job for him to do" he said evilly.

"Sir please were in pain, can't we have some dust (drugs) first?" asked Igazi

"No this is your punishment, you need to feel the pain of failure" now get going!

GWENS' SCHOOL

"Gwen, Gwen?" Gwendolyn Tennyson?

"Gwen turned her head towards the front of the classroom only to see her History teacher Mr Hertzog standing at her desk staring at her disapprovingly. "Please stop staring out of the window and pay attention!"

"Sorry sir" she said.

"Now for the third time, may you please hand in your 'Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism assignment'" he said impatiently. Gwen froze, she had been working on that assignment for the whole of last week and had decided to finish it yesterday but she forgot on account of what happened to Ben and The Futhas.

"I… I don't have it here sir" she said timidly.

Everyone in the classroom stopped and stared at her including Mr Hertzog. They all whispered in surprised that the star pupil of their entire peer group did not, for the first time do her homework. Even Mr Hertzog looked dumbfounded.

"Well unfortunately Gwen I have to be fair and give you the same punishment as everyone else would. Here's your first ever detention slip".

"Oooohhhh" jeered the students.

"Everyone be quiet! now Gwen be sure to attend after school".

"After school, but I can't make it after school, I…" she trailed off thinking of Ben who would be waiting for her after school in Bellwood hospital after being transferred from Prosperity Academic hospital.

"Sorry Gwen fair's fair."

After class ended as Gwen was about to leave but Mr Hertzog called to see her. "Yes sir?"

"Give me that detention slip". He placed it back in his desk drawer. "I do this for all my students who get their first detention slips, let this serve as a warning and don't let it happen again." "Yes Sir." she said

As she left for the door ,a faint glow emitting from her bag caught her attention. She looked inside her satchel and found her plumbers badge and its familiar green light. "It's on again, but why would_ they_ turn our badges on again?"

KEVINS' HOUSE

"Bye mom"

Kevin waved to his mother as she sped off to work. This left him the best opportunity to finally call some people and ask for advice on what to do about 'The Futha'. He was about to run upstairs and get his phone but before he could do that there was a knock on the door that he just closed. He exclaimed in frustration and opened the front door just to see that there was no one there.

Suddenly something whooshed past him into the house, something that looked shiny, and small. He froze in surprise as it was too fast to for him to see what it was or where it landed. He closed the door and searched frantically about the entrance of the house to try and spot anything unfamiliar until…

He saw it… a shiny silver circle that looked like a bracelet attached to the kitchen wall by a hologrammed pin. Kevin knew better than to touch it, he knew it was a trap. He stepped closer to the bracelet and saw some writing on it which read "Say uncle?" he said out loud.

The bracelet acted too quickly for him to realise what was happening; the bracelet actually broke into two halves and both attached themselves to his wrists locking themselves on him. Kevin tried to break them off but couldn't, he tried absorbing the stainless steel of the fridge but also couldn't, as he tried to absorb the material but all it did was make him weaker. His worst fear was again realised when he heard from behind him: "My cuffs are suppressing your Osmosian powers, that's why you can't absorb anything, baby" said Revenna in her usual sickly sweet voice but this time unsmiling, although she seemed different somehow, she had more scars and injuries than the last time they met and he noticed she was shivering slightly.

Igazi walked in with a member that Kevin knew as Choppa who, also looked like they had more injuries. Kevin cursed under his breath; he didn't think The Futha' would find him so quickly. "How did you know where I live"?

"I borrowed this piece of alien tech from a rookie plumber working outside the plumbers academy, which helped me get into the plumbers academy database then I followed your plumbers badge coordinates". Kevin mentally kicked himself; he hadn't checked when the badges were back online, his was still upstairs in his drawer.

"What do you want with me?" asked Kevin his patience wearing thin.

"What do we want with you? _What do we want with you?_" asked Igazi showing Kevin the dry blood on his fingernails. "You did this to us when you decided to destroy our priceless weapons we were meant to give to our 'Sir'. You know better than to interfere in this kind of business Kev and since you've forgotten, we here to remind you".

"You can't hurt me, I know where you dirty bastards' home turf is and I can inform the plumbers"

"A lot has changed Kevin since you were in this group with us, so you don't know shit! Get him so we can leave this shit place".

The tiny yet strong guy named Choppa started walking up to Kevin who in a swift move, opened the nearest kitchen drawer and took out a kitchen knife. When Choppa ran at him, Kevin tried to stab the little guy in the shoulder but he was so quick and evasive, that he dodged the knife and took out a steel pipe from his back pocket and hit Kevin in the back of his head. Kevin fell to the ground on impact.

"Give him the 'piss blood' instructed Igazi.

"NO, why are you doing this to me, I used to be your best friend!"

Igazi ignored him and snapped his fingers at Choppa who went behind Kevin and kicked him so hard; he felt it where his kidneys lie. He exclaimed in sheer pain. Choppa kicked him again… and again… and again… and Kevin howled, screamed, exclaimed in pain until he was scratching the floor with his short fingernails in pain, then Revenna said "that's enough, we need to get him to planet Mecka now before 'Sir' gets back, anyway I think he'll be pissing blood for a few days now". She then pulled out a whip and wrapped it around Kevin's neck and it electrocuted him into unconsciousness. "We need to have him asleep so he doesn't see the route we're taking and tell his friends" she said. She dragged Kevin by the whip around his neck and placed him into their spaceship hovering quietly above the house with Igazi and Choppa following her and they were off into the distance.

GWEN AFTER SCHOOL

"So, are you coming with me to get tickets for Vampire Summer VI, I still can't believe they replaced Jennifer Nocturne after she 'allegedly' had a breakdown and tried running away with some older man". "Gwen, hey Gwen?"

"Yeah?"

"Look, you did it again, what's wrong with you today? Why are you so distracted?"

"Sorry Em, what were you saying.

"Are you coming to get tickets for Vampire Summer Six"? Gwen was waiting in the visitors parking area of the school for Kevin to pick her up after school and take her to see Ben at the hospital when her best friend Emily approached her.

"No I have to go somewhere after school before my six o' clock curfew".

"Don't you have karate after school?"

"I'm ditching for today, if I don't then I won't make it home before my curfew"

"Why do you even have a curfew so early?"

"I'm grounded, I came home past midnight last night and didn't tell my parents where I was and didn't answer my phone at all when they tried calling me a hundred times.

"What's with you Gwen?"

"What do you mean?"

"First you don't do your history assignment which is unheard of for you, then you're ditching karate to go to some mysterious place, now you're grounded with your parents, you didn't answer my phone calls yesterday as well, is something up with you?".

Gwen would more than love to confide in her best friend about 'The Futha' gang but she knew it would be best not to tell her or she would go into total meltdown.

"No" she said simply

"Well I guess then I'll call you tonight, is that okay?"

"Sure"

"And you'll answer?"

"Oh yeah of course" she said distantly. Emily looked at her worryingly before she left.

Gwen looked down at her watch, she had been waiting for over an hour for Kevin and she couldn't reach him on his cell phone. "Kevin Levin, you are so dead!" she said out loud walking to the bus stop around the corner. "Bellwood hospital? She asked the driver of which he nodded his head and was about to climb in when she heard someone yelling her name…."Gwen, wait!"

It was Ben's girlfriend Julie Yamamoto, she was panting. "I'm sorry, but I needed to ask you, do you know where Ben is? He didn't come to school today and I can't reach him on his phone".

Gwen gulped, keeping Ben's condition a secret was proving to be harder than expected. "Don't worry about it Julie, he's spending time with my grandfather. He should be here tomorrow, as for not answering his phone, it's a camping trip so he probably left it at home, anyway I'll see you later." She said feeling guilty about quickly ditching Julie and climbing onto the bus, leaving an unsure Julie behind.

AT THE BELLWOOD HOSPITAL

"Hello I'm Ashley Sampson and I'm here to see my cousin erm, John Smith" she said to the receptionist. Using a pseudonym was weird enough without having to pretend that Ben could actually pass as a John Smith.

"Oh yes, he's in room 201" "thanks"

As Gwen got to room 201, she slowly opened the door and found Ben sitting up, watching Sumo slammers on the TV in his room. "What's up cuz? He said cheerfully.

"Ben how did you heal so fast?"

"I transformed into Swampfire earlier today when my ultimatrix was switched on again by those goons, so I can heal faster of course, as Swampfire has regenerative powers.

"So what are you still doing in here?"

"I couldn't let the nurses get suspicious, anyway, where's Kevin to cry over my poor mangled body". He said dramatically

That's just it, he's not here and I can't phone him either, I can't believe after all this he doesn't even bother to show up or answer my calls! I swear I'm gonna kill him!

"Don't be so hard on him Gwen; I'm pretty sure he feels guilty enough as it is". "I…"

Before she could respond the jingle on her plumbers badge caught her attention. "Gwen, Ben, Kevin are you there?" asked Magister Ghalil appearing as a hologram on Gwen's badge.

"Yes Ben and I are here".

"Great, I need the two of you to come to the plumber's academy A.S.A.P."

"Why?

We have a crisis on our hands here and we need the two of you as senior plumbers to be here for an investigation.

"Should we go I mean with you still in hospital and all?" she asked Ben

"Of course we should, Ben Ten is back, let's go!"

"How are we going to get out of here?"

Leave it to me".

Gwen and Ben as a tiny nanomic snuck out of the hospital and took another bus to the area near the junk yard to get to the Rust Bucket II spaceship and headed out to the near stationed Plumbers academy outside earths' orbit. When they arrived there was nothing but chaos as the place was in shambles. The entire control room centre looked like it had been blasted away by a huge explosion, the walls were blackened by a fire and the computer screens were cracked, broken, offline and static. Plumber trainees were barricaded in their rooms and some who were walking through the corridors of the station were seen crying and holding each other. They met the Magister in his office.

"Magister what happened?" asked Ben surprised.

"It's not easy to explain this to you but we were broken into earlier today"

"What! that's impossible; the plumber's academy has one of the tightest securities of any security station in the Galaxy, second only to Incarcetron maximum prison" said Gwen.

"Not to mention that this facility is crowded with police" said Ben.

"I know, that's why we have our suspicions that it was an inside job, or…"

"Or?"

"Or the intruder stole an encrypted gate key from one of our rookie officers, which brings me to the other problem".

"What is it?" It looked difficult for him to speak. "Go on we can handle it".

"We found the body of one of our trainees in the control room today after the break in".

"Who was it?" she asked her heart racing.

"We believe that it's the body of Pierce, he'd been missing for several hours now just outside the academy and the body was found at the same place as well".

"Oh my goodness" said Gwen feeling dizzy

"Wait, what do you mean you _believe_ its Pierce, why haven't you identified the body yet". asked Ben

"Because… the body was burnt beyond recognition, we couldn't extract any DNA to identify him".

Gwen and Ben gasped at the same time as this information left them reeling, their world was spinning out of control.

"Can't you use the DNA of his sister Helen for a close match" whispered Ben still disturbed.

"They're adopted siblings, it wouldn't work".

"Poor Helen, she's probably in so much grief right now" said Gwen sadly

"She's gone back to earth now and I don't think she'll be back for more training"

"What are you guys gonna do now?"

"We're launching an investigation with our top officials in conjunction with you guys, hopefully we find the scum who did this to us"

Gwen had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she was left reeling by the death of Pierce and now Kevin was also missing. She coulldn't reach him in anyway. She had a feeling that this was the beginning of a huge disaster.


	5. Chapter 5 Gangland part 1

Chapter 5: Gangland: part 1 

When Kevin finally regained consciousness, he blinked twice, trying to adjust his eyes to the light emitting above him and quickly closed them, the light was too bright for his eyes. He couldn't remember what had happened to him or where he was. All he knew was that he was lying on a cold floor with a bright light above him. He tried moving but couldn't, his entire body was bound by a tight nylon rope. He tried absorbing the rope but realised that he was still wearing bracelets that inhibited his powers. That's when it all came back to him... The Futha had paid him a visit and assaulted him in his own house, but where he was now was still a mystery to him. He tried opening his eyes again only to feel a splitting headache from when he was hit over the head with a steel pipe by Choppa. As painful as it was, he continued struggling against the rope to try and get loose, but all he could do was hear voices…

"… Not fair, once 'Sir' has him we'll be thrown to the wayside again" came Revenna's voice

"Then we'll just have to prove that we're not easily replaceable" said Igazi

"Excuse me?, do you know how fucking powerful Kevin Eleven is with his alien powers? we're going to look like a joke next to him!"

"Don't fucking tell me what I already know Revenna, I know this guy and his abilities and I'm telling you, we're all gonna get what we want". "Hey, go and wake him up, we're here".

Kevin heard footsteps approaching him; he closed his eyes again and pretended to be unconscious just before someone stopped next to him and shook him.

"Get up scum, now! We're here!" came Choppa.

Kevin opened his eyes and Choppa pulled him up from the rope around him, he tried getting up but when he did he felt a sharp pain coming from his lower back, this caused him to hunch over and exclaim in pain. Choppa unmercifully pushed him to go forward into the central spaceship.

"Where are we, where have you assholes taken me?" asked Kevin in painful gasps but Choppa merely remained silent.

"We've brought you back to Futha territory, welcome to planet Mecka" said Igazi piloting the spaceship

Kevin turned his head and looked through the giant window in front of the spaceship and saw that they were landing on a planet that he had never even seen, but he couldn't see much more as the planet looked like it was enveloped in a cloud of brown dust.

"Why did you bring me here, I'm no longer part of your gang". "I guess we'll find out soon enough buddy".

A feeling of uneasiness was settling inside Kevin about his kidnapping especially because he hadn't heard of the planet and didn't know how he was going to get home. Gwen, Ben and his mother didn't know where he was and were going to worry sick about his absence. He didn't even have a phone to call them, nor did he have his plumbers badge to call for help. The situation really was dire. When they landed, Revenna walked up to Kevin and clamped a hook onto the rope he was tied to so that she can pull him like a dog on a leash and to walk him out of the ship with Igazi and Choppa.

"Look at this place Kevin! Look outside this ship!" exclaimed Igazi wildly, throwing his hands in the air "Look at what we've achieved, this place is ours! We run this bitch right here! You should have stayed with us then you could also have all this, but that's okay, you're here now" he said walking right up to Kevin's face and saying "It'll be just like old times, you and me, Iggy and Kevin Eleven the baddest motherfuckers in the universe!". Kevin said nothing to him and just narrowed his eyes at him, but he was slightly overwhelmed at the idea that his old gang could take over a whole planet.

"Here it is" said Revenna pulling him out of the ship.

Kevin stepped outside the spaceship and gasped at what he saw. It was simply shocking and disgusting. They landed in what looked like a city, but the city was in complete disrepair. Derelict buildings littered the city centre, covered in graffiti, rust, smashed windows and small animals that he didn't recognise rotting in years and years of decay due to neglect. The entire air space was taken over by small cruiser spaceships hovering around; it looked like they were constantly patrolling, but why he didn't know. The sky wasn't visible; it was covered by a brown blanket of smog he saw from when they were landing and, come to think of it Kevin's breathing became heavier as the air was so polluted.

There were bridges, highways and roads all over, and they all seemed to be going in no particular direction but all over the place. Kevin began walking with his three captors, they walked past mass graves of people, and dead bodies of both humans and aliens were lying scattered all over the city. The smell alone could kill someone. The small amount of people and aliens who were walking around wore brown robes and covered their faces in hoods; some looked down in fear when Kevin and the gang walked past them, and some stared in extreme hatred. They didn't look like they were part of the gang though because they all looked weak and ill. It was a sorry sight. Kevin tried looking inside some buildings with the windows still intact but he couldn't see anything but darkness until he looked through the small window of one building and saw a young man chained to a wall. He was shivering uncontrollably. "Hey Revenna, where you been queen bitch?" came someone's voice from behind.

An alien who looked like Ben's transformation known as 'Four Arms' only bigger and more tattooed stepped in front of Revenna, carrying a female alien who looked drugged under his arm. It made Kevin sick.

"Taking care of business, you can take the spaceship for your own shit you need to take care of, as long as you don't go to Earth, it's now off limits, we can't attract any attention to ourselves now" she said to him. The alien stepped aside and walked away with the female alien in his hands.

"What have you done to these people?" Kevin whispered in disgust but was ignored by the three. The three of them stopped walking and Revenna turned to Kevin. "Listen here Kevin, you're going into gangland now, so man up and listen to me if you want to stay alive, you haven't been initiated yet so you're still an outsider" Revenna said opening a door that lead down to a spiral staircase. "I'm not joining this gang Revenna" he said through gritted teeth, but she ignored this as well.

When they got to the bottom of the stairs it revealed a basement in the same condition as the rest of the city;dirty and neglected and sewer water leaking from busted pipes. But this place was extremely rowdy because there were crowds of humans/aliens everywhere just as intimidating and dangerous as Igazi; gambling, drinking, fighting, drugging and smoking and when they saw who came down, they all stopped and stared at Kevin. They looked at him with such suspicion that Kevin looked away. He realised that the Futha had expanded its numbers since he was last in the gang because he didn't know most of the people there. Revenna approached one of the first ranked officials, an alien with burned skin as well and said "We've got him". "Good, take him forward" the official said. Kevin's heart was beating, he had long since been in the Futha gang and he didn't know who their new boss was. He prepared himself to meet him…

"'Sir' here he is" said Igazi standing back. The creature that was standing with his back turned to them opened his eyes and turned around to look at Kevin who couldn't see his face as it was still covered by the shadows…

"Kevin Eleven, nice to see you again"

The creatures voice wasn't as intimidating as he had expected but it was however familiar. "_I know that voice_" he said in his head.

"I haven't seen you since you tried to kill me… again". Kevin couldn't hide the confusion from his face. "I don't know what you're talking about".

"Huh, and I see you've been cured from you're monster like appearance". Kevin was taken aback, how did this creature know about that? Was his old gang spying on him all this time, because of the rule that once you join a gang you can never leave a gang? He dared ask the question "Who are you..."

The creature smiled, as Kevin's heart was racing. The creature stepped out of the shadows and looked more closely at Kevin. Kevin's heart felt like it would stop, he was so shocked to see who it was that exclaimed in anger and surprise...

**Sorry, no one hates cliffhangers like I do but, I'm curious to see if anyone knows who it is, it's not too difficult if you think about the last couple of lines.**


	6. Chapter 6: Gangland part 2

**WARNING: Some violence in this chapter. I hope it's not too violent though because it's based on real events in my country.**

Chapter 6: Gangland part 2

"Morgg?!"

Kevin looked into the eyes of the evil greedy alien responsible for taking the life of his friend and mentor when he was still an inmate of the Null Void at eleven years old. The same anger he felt when he found out Kwarrel was killed boiled up inside him.

"Surprise to see me?. "Untie him" he instructed to Igazi who marched up to Kevin and undid the rope binding him. Clearly the gang had an enormous amount of fear and respect for him.

"How did you get out of Incarcetron maximum security prison?" Kevin said shaking with fury.

"You can ask the warden that question" Morgg said casually.

So Gwen's initial suspicions were right, it was corruption that was plaguing the system, the same way that Morgg had been warden of the Null Void Prison in order to mine the drugs without any suspicion, he probably had one of his gang members go through the motions in order to become the warden of Incarcetron as this was a sure way of controlling the gangs and getting them out if need be. If the intergalactic prisons were being run by bloodthirsty criminals, it only gave them more power. That's why it would be easy to take over a planet like this one, Kevin deduced.

"You're in charge of the prisons, and you took over this planet didn't you?" asked Kevin already knowing the answer.

"We needed a home turf and Prosperity City however ironic that name is, was too small for us, so we took over this place, but it didn't come without fight from the locals".

Kevin remembered the dead bodies lying in the streets. "Most of them have already joined my gang anyway, in order to survive in this inhospitable hell.

"You monster, you brought poverty to this planet so the people will have no choice but to join your gang and survive by making money from this life, that's how you increased your numbers!"

"True, the people of this planet needed a way to survive so we gave it to them".

Kevin thought about what kind of employment he could be giving the people on the planet. "The drug trade! you still haven't stopped with that since we caught you when you were still the warden of the Null Void, and there's more isn't there; intergalactic criminals, training people to get jobs as wardens of prisons?"

"You catch on pretty fast Kevin, and there you were along with your precious Kwarrel underestimating me".

"You've reached a new level of low you son of a bitch, I won't let you get away with this, I'll tell the plumbers about this if it's the last thing I do".

"That's touching Kevin, but you can't escape, there's a cloaking device hiding this planet from the rest of the universe and the security? You can't even blink without me knowing about it". Kevin thought of the heavily guarded airspace, he swore in his head as his anger was threatening to spill out.

"So why did you bring me here?".

"Well you see, I have this situation, you destroyed some of my guns when you came charging after the rodent, which is okay now because you're going to get something else for me… I'm sure you're familiar with the weapon masters of Techadon?. They have developed some new battle weapons but unfortunately they have been confiscated into a vault on a small supply station planet called 'Shayana' not far from here and you're going to bring them to me. We're going through a turf war again soon with a rival gang 'The homicidal Kids' and we need to replace the ones you blew up. You owe me for destroying my weapons and I'll let you go once your debt to me is paid. Although your reputation as plumber…"

"What makes you think I would ever join this gang again? said Kevin narrowing his eyes.

Morgg contemplated this before saying "Hmmm, tell me Kevin, do you… like your mother?" he asked in his usual calm demeanour.

Kevin felt red hot anger licking at his insides which made him clench his fists in anger. _"_You wouldn't_"_ he whispered.

"Just answer the question" said Morgg in a dangerous tone that excited his thugs waiting in the wings. "Yes" Kevin said through gritted teeth.

"And tell me, do you like your mother's head still attached to her body?"

Kevin's fury launched him forward to charge at Morgg only to get hit in the stomach by his two cronies waiting in the wings. He fell to the ground but his anger numbed any pain he felt at that time. He glared at Morgg with a deep hatred and felt like he was breathing fire from his nostrils.

"I guess that settles it, take him for a walk until I give you further instructions about when we'll go to planet 'Shayana', and take the rat too, he's dripping on my floor" he said pointing to what looked like Argit sitting on a chair in the corner. He walked away feeling satisfied.

The crowd of gangsters jumped up and started yelling excitedly as they got up and started climbing out fast out of the basement, brandishing dangerous weapons as they went. "Let's go Kevin" said Igazi excitedly picking Kevin up from the floor and pulling him forward as if they were old pals again. Kevin stumbled, but eventually got up. Kevin saw Argit out of the corner of his eye and saw how broken he was; his left eye was stitched shut and his bloodied bandaged head revealed that the Futha gang hadn't bothered to give him any medical attention for his injury when his skull was crushed by Igazi. Kevin walked up to him felling guilty.

"Argit, I'm sorry for what happened to you, if I had known—

"Save it Kevin…. I… d-Don't, waa… want, your sympa—thy…" he stuttered unable to communicate properly as his injury was starting to disable him. He got up weakly and Kevin tried to help him but Argit only shook him away before one of the other gangsters picked Argit up violently and took him away.

As they got to the surface, the two hundred and fifty-strong gangsters ran through the city smashing windows that were intact, throwing grenades into the air that went off with loud BANGS! Some of them who were riding on quad bikes waved their weapons in the air and exclaiming proudly of who they were. They sent the scores of local people and aliens who dared show their face in public running scared for their lives, and taking shelter in broken buildings. Kevin couldn't handle the way the people were being treated, he had to do something. As Igazi joined the rest of the crowd and Kevin fell behind on purpose. He approached an old human man looking frail and petrified at him.

"Please don't hurt me" he cowered shaking all over his starved and skinny body.

"Don't worry sir, I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to know, what happened here? What did these people do to you?".

"Many years ago now, The Futha gang came here to this prosperous planet and made it their home base. Our people tried to fight back but it was hopeless" he said pointing to the direction of the mass graves in the city. This planet was inhabited by aliens first, then for us humans, our descendants came here to this planet to start a new life away from Earth and its pollution, wars and economic crises. We co-existed peacefully with the aliens, and life was good until the Futha came and tore our society apart by destroying food supplies, damaging our homes, schools and city. The only way to survive was to join the gang and earn money from the drug trade... now _my grandson, my dear boy_…" he sobbed loudly covering his face with his hands which left Kevin heart wrenched to see the frail old man crying in anguish.

"Your grandson, is he a member of the gang now?" asked Kevin

"Yes and I haven't seen him in months after he killed his mother to join them, you have to kill your family to join the gang but he let me escape for some reason".

As Kevin talked to the old man he saw something nearby, it looked like a body. Argit's body! His heart tightened as he saw his old friend lying dead in the street with dust covering his body and blood seeping out of his head. "Oh my God, Argit!" he said stepping up to his body. "No!" exclaimed the old man. "Were not allowed to bury our dead if they don't die in battle, why do you think this place is covered by dead bodies". Kevin, feeling heartsore felt more determined than ever to bring Morgg and his old gang to justice.

"I know it's difficult to be at the mercy of people who have such a lack and disreguard for life but we have no choice" said the old man quietly.

"Sir I promise you that I'll help you and get your son back from those thugs and free this place".

"How can you promise that?"

"Just trust me". The old man looked at him hopelessly and said "Please stop talking to me, you'll get me into trouble" he said evident that the hopelessness he felt was too much for him...

When they got back to the basement later on Morgg stood in the centre of the group of gang members his arms folded behind his back. "Planet Gula is inhabited by a group of some of the best scientific minds in the universe where they carry out experiments to find new cures, and research to improve life for all in the universe. Entrance is prohibited for the common folk because of the dangerous chemicals they deal with unless permission is given by the Department of Intergalactic Scientific Research Institution three galaxies away. You boys know a thing or two about this don't you?" to which the gangsters laughed and sniggered at the fact that they had once robbed the planet to obtain said chemicals and burn their skin to destroy their DNA so it can't be used for evidence.

"Well some of my other subordinates have obtained the chemicals needed from there again so we can load the weapons up with acid and protect our home from 'the homicidal kids' gang." he said looking at a few gang members standing behind him to which Kevin noticed a nervous and rather young looking gang member wearing a relatively new looking necklace around his neck glancing around with shifty eyes feeling unsure of himself. "_This must be that old man's grandson_" Kevin deduced in his head before Morggs' speaking broke into his thoughts again.

"All we need now are the weapons, and fortunately, we have a plumber among us. Morgg looked at Kevin "You're going to go and get these Techadon weapons for me and if there's any trouble you will use your status as a policeman to cover your ass".

"Morgg, don't make me do this, I can't betray the plumbers" he said angrily.

"You have only yourself to blame, since you destroyed our weapons you have to get new ones for us. "Igazi, and Revenna move out!" he yelled. "Revenna as first unit captain you're in charge of this, and you know of the punishment if you fail again… you're running out of fingernails" he said to her. "And keep an eye out for Kevin" said Morgg.

"Got it" said Revenna as a blackmailed Kevin and Igazi followed her out…

PLANET SHAYANA 

"Listen up, we're nearing planet Shayana, so here's what were gonna do. "Igazi you're going to leave the spaceship first and scout for any person who will immediately be killed. Then I will look for the vault at the station and Kevin will absorb the material of the vault and smash it open. Then I'll place these chips into the armour of the weapons, decreasing their weight so I can grab them by hand".

Igazi nodded his heads but Kevin just stood where he was of which Revenna said "I swear Kevin Eleven you'd better do as you're told or we're all fucked".

"What happens if we don't pull this off? asked Kevin hoping to foil there plans if the opportunity came his way.

"Punishment for failure you get what is called 'Pick a hand' where they pull off your fingernails with pliers or if it's an expensive failure they strap you to a machine hanging from the roof by your fingernails and the machine slowly pulls them off until you fall on the ground. And that's only one of the many kinds of punishments; we gave you the 'piss blood' when we kidnapped you to damage your kidneys and make you piss blood so you can be reminded of the debt you owe us when you pee. "So if those sound like fun for you, then go ahead and fuck up!". When Kevin said nothing she said to the both of them "It's go time baby!"...

The ship landed behind a hill near the supply station building in hiding. It was the perfect place to hide considering it was the dead of night on the planet. Igazi slowly walked out of the spaceship with a gun in hand and crept over the hill. When he saw that everything was clear, he motioned the two to come. Revenna and Kevin followed him to the entrance of the station a few metres away. While Kevin walked carefully and quietly to the station, an egotistic Revenna merely modelled there, sashaying her tail and assaulting the floor with her high heel shoes, not even bothering to remain quiet. When they got to the station she walked in and was confronted by the alien guarding the place.

"Hey what the hell are you doing—

'Bang! Bang!' Came the sound of gunshots by Revenna who hadn't even stopped walking to pay any attention to the alien she just mercilessly killed.

"You can come in now" she said to Kevin and Igazi waiting outside. She stopped walking only when she reached the vault.

"It's your turn now Kevin. Kevin hesitantly absorbed the cold steel of the vault and smashed it open and felt guilty at the same time. "_I'm a criminal_" he thought to himself. Revenna walked inside and placed chips on the heavy artillery, which included Techadon robot arms, machine guns, Kalashnikov, two sided missiles with targets and a battle suit. After Revenna placed the chips inside, she picked them up like they were made of paper and gave them to Igazi. As Kevin walked out with the weapons, he felt somewhat relieved that it was almost over, but... he had thought too soon as a noise came from behind him. A sound that instilled his biggest fear inside of him. A sound that he had dreaded from the beginning. Someone was standing behind them: a plumber.

"Hold on, where do you think you're going, put your hands in the air" commanded the plumber sticking his gun in the air and pointing at them.

Revenna and Igazi with weapons still in their hands turned around but Kevin, holding his breath, didn't dare.

"That's not very smart officer, the odds aren't in your favour" said Igazi.

"Put your hands in the air' he said ignoring him.

"And you there, turn around slowly" he said to Kevin.

Kevin froze in fear, if he turned around he would be identified by the plumber and he would be implicated as a criminal. Before he could think any further there was a commotion behind him. Igazi had just launched himself at the officer who shot at him but missed. Igazi tackled him to the ground as the plumber yelled in pain.

Kevin finally turned around to see Igazi on top of the plumber. 'That was a very stupid thing to do sir" said Revenna placing the weapons on the floor as Igazi broke the plumbers' gun with his bare hands. Revenna got a chair from the killed station manager's officer and placed the plumber on it. She bound him up before the plumber finally looked up.

"Kevin?, what are you doing with these people? Help me!".

Kevin looked away in guilt and said to Revenna 'Please don't hurt him, I'll get into trouble".

"Should of thought about that before you joined this gang, anyway I'm saving your skin, now that he's spotted you, we'll just kill him so he won't bust you."

"What are you going to do to him?" asked Kevin afraid of the answer.

"He's a plumber, you know what we do to plumbers, we '***Necklace' **them.

"No! you can't do that' yelled Kevin desperately, but Revenna pushed him aside and told Igazi to bring car tyres from the spaceship. Kevin felt like he was losing his mind before the plumber begged and the guilt and betrayal he felt was going to kill him.

"Kevin please don't let them kill me, PLEASE! I have a pregnant wife back on planet Earth and she needs me!" he begged.

Kevin turned away helplessly before Igazi returned and forced the two car tyres over the plumbers' body.

"I thought that you were one of us Kevin!" he said one final desperate time.

Kevin walked away and closed his eyes as Igzai poured petrol over the plumber and set him on fire.

The screams. The screams of a living soul being unmercifully tortured and burned to its death stabbed the air like a thousand angry knives. It felt like it lasted a lifetime. He just screamed. He screamed a scream that would haunt the soul of those who hear it. It would reverberate through time, through nightmares. Forever.

Kevin felt dizzy and sick, he was on the brink of tears before he slowly opened his eyes and saw a bright red button in the corner of the room. Then he had a plan...

'BEEP,BEEP,BEEP BEEP' came a loud noise around them along with a red light that engulfed the room. After that, everything seemed to happen so quickly.

"It's the alarm, lets get out of here!" Revenna yelled as she picked up the weapons and ran with Igazi in tow, but Kevin, nearest the door got there first and absorbed the metal door, broke the handel, and slided a piece of metal in the gap of the door, trapping Igazi and Revenna inside. They looked at him in fury from the window next to the door and were trying to smash it as Kevin ran for it. He thought that the plumber must have come here by ship and searched outside frantically for it before he saw it in the distance. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him before gunshots were being fired at him from behind.

'I'll Kill you Kevin Eleven!" Shouted Igazi. Kevin made it to the spaceship with a bullet almost grazing his shoulder and smashed the window, absorbed the engine parts, morphed his finger into the key and fired the engine as quickly as he could as his old gang friends were gaining on him. When he slowly launched he saw them stop and point in another direction. Kevin saw from above that they were now running back to their spaceship because a fleet of plumbers spaceships were landing by the station. He looked away from the chaos happening below him and sped away hoping he could find a way back to earth with the ship and hoping that the gangsters were caught, but he couldn't help but feel that his life would be changed forever from both sides of his now double life...

***Necklacing- A form of vigilantism in South Africa where members of a community who feel frustrated at police who never catch criminals terrorising their communities, go themselves to find the criminals and throw car tyres over them and set them on fire. The word necklace refers to the car tyres surrounding the criminal. **


	7. Chapter 7: Reunion

***Sorry that I've been gone for a while, I'm starting to feel the heat of university final exams. Anyway, just to point out I have given Kevin's mother a name in this chapter because I can't find her real name on any site, so I came up with the best name I could think of that keeps the rhyming scheme of the surname Levin (-evin).**

Chapter 7: Reunion

THE TENNYSON HOUSE (GWEN'S SIDE)

"Gwen, aren't you going to eat your food?"

The Tennyson family was sitting at the table eating dinner, and a despondent Gwen didn't even pick up her fork. She merely sat there staring into space.

"I'm not hungry mom, actually I think that I'll just go to my room" she said standing up.

Gwen's parents exchanged concerned glances at each other before her brother Ken who was at home for university break asked annoyed "What's wrong with you these days Gwen, why don't you ever eat or do anything anymore?".

"Sound down Kenneth" said their father Frank.

"I just don't know why she has to go around here looking like a complete zombie and expect us not to say anything".

Gwen ran up the stairs and shut her bedroom door without acknowledging anything her brother was saying to her. Not telling them about Kevin's disappearance was proving to be ever more difficult.

When Gwen got to her room she ignored the growling of her stomach and reached for her phone lying under a pile of school work on her study desk. She lifted the math test on top of her phone and looked down blankly at the 'D minus' score of the test before shoving it into her desk drawer. It was the third test this week she had scored so poorly by her standards. She looked in the mirror and did not recognise who she saw reflecting back at her. She looked like a different person, a changing person a self-destructive person. The reflection scared her. She picked up her smartphone just to see that she had six text messages on her chatting app from her concerned best friend Emily, who wanted to know why she was never answering her calls anymore. She removed them from her home screen and dialled Ben. Life had not been easy since Kevin's disappearance almost four weeks ago and all her worrying had started taking its toll on her. She wasn't eating right, her grades were dropping, she no longer talked to any of her school friends and she had been searching relentlessly with Ben for any sign of Kevin where she could. Pierce's horrible death hadn't helped her paranoia…

"Hello?" Ben answered.

"Hey Ben, it's me Gwen, I just thought of another place we haven't looked" she said to him.

Ben remained quiet for a while before he sighed and said "Look Gwen… there's no easy way to say this but I think it's time we, erm let go of this for a while and wait for news that will eventually come, looking for Kevin this way is not working…"

"What are you doing now?" she asked quietly ignoring him.

"I'm doing homework with Julie"

"Meet me in Los Soledad in 20 minutes"

"What? Wait Gwe—" he said but was cut off when she hung up on him. She couldn't give into hopelessness that she felt, and she knew there's no way Kevin was in Los Soledad but she had to keep looking, keep busy so she felt like she was achieving something, getting closer to him. It was driving her insane to keep worrying, having to wait for news that they found his body… that last thought stirred fear inside her, and so did the thoughts of Pierce's death. She snuck out of the house for the fifth time that week via her bedroom window and ran on her manna steps to Los Soledad...

SOMEWHERE ON PLANET EARTH

The stolen plumber's spaceship lay in ruins after crash landing onto a rocky outcrop back on planet Earth in Kevin's home country. For the young plumber who emerged out of the ship, starving, tired sweaty and dirty, life had changed forever. He was a changed man. After he survived the crash, he stumbled out of the ship and sat atop the hill to calm his shaking body as fear, exhaustion, trauma and longing for his loved ones overwhelmed him. It had taken weeks to find his way back judging by the calendar that Kevin saw inside the ship. "_What have I done, escaping means they'll come after me and my mother, what am I gonna do, how can I protect her and everyone else?" _he said in his head, shaking all over his body...

His old gang had changed. That was certain. They were more brutal, more evil_; _they had lost any sense of humanity. He could never remember being like that when he was in the gang. Kevin closed his eyes and tried to picture his eleven year old self… He saw himself yelling at his mother and her new husband then running away to join 'The Futha' gang in another city…rerouting train tracks so two trains would collide, killing the civilians so he could take the money aboard the train… almost driving a tram into a river which would drown the passengers on board... committing acts of terrorism in various metropolitan cities in the transformations of Ben's original omnitrix so he could get him in trouble... beating up his bullies to the point that they were disabled... he didn't care who got hurt as long as he got what he wanted until… he met Gwen and Ben. They had literally changed his life. It was difficult for him to come to terms with his criminal past especially since he told the gang that he was nothing like them when in fact, he was...

Kevin's thoughts were interrupted by screaming, the only screaming that wouldn't stop haunting him. It filtered out of Kevin's head and into the silent night, Kevin gripped hard on the rock and sweated heavily. He needed to get home and see his loved ones who he had missed too much to comprehend, but before that he took a detour into the small town bordered by the giant rock, to calm his nerves...

LOS SOLEDAD

Gwen sat on the dusty hood of an old rusted car left inside the walls of Los Soledad, abandoned military base, in the freezing cold wind whipping her hair and holding one of Kevin's old T-shirts, she waited for Ben who arrived an hour later clutching his jacket tightly in the cold wind and looking less than impressed.

"Gwen what are we doing here? You and I both know that he couldn't possibly be here, so why are you wasting time?". She said nothing for a while and remained in her despondent state.

"He used to come drag racing here with his some of his friends in the desert behind Los Soledad, so I thought it was worth checking out" she said looking down.

"Don't you think that he would have come home a long time ago if he was just drag racing here? His friends would have told us if something had happened to him" said Ben rubbing his hands together to keep them warm.

"If you think that looking for Kev—" she paused, she hadn't said his name out loud in a long time, "_Kevin _is a waste of time then leave, but I'm going to stay here and look for him".

"You know that's not what I mean, I'm just worried about you" he came and sat next to her on the car hood. "This has completely taken over your life now; you don't do much of anything these days if you're not looking for Kevin where we know he won't be".

"What am I supposed to do Ben, what?" she said frustrated. "Sooner or later we have to find him or _his body_-" she stopped talking before she could be betrayed by her emotions; she tried to keep thoughts of Pierce's gruesome death out of her mind. Ben could see that she was fighting, fighting against her own doubt and hopelessness and when Ben saw the fear in her eyes, he hit his ultimatrix and turned into wildmutt, then slapped his chest and exclaimed "Ultimate Wildmutt" and sniffed one of Kevin's spare T- shirts that Gwen was holding in her hand and started sniffing around the area. As Ben sniffed the area as Ultimate Wildmutt closest to Gwen, he saw her give a weak smile in what felt like forever, and realised that doing something gave her the hope she needed. She probably saw this as a process of elimination.

THE LEVIN HOUSE

When Kevin got to the door to his house an hour later, he exhaled a sharp breath as he rang the doorbell. He heard murmuring from inside which he found was unusual as he lived alone with his mother. Footsteps approached the door and he saw the doorknob being turned. He looked down when the light from inside the house hit him and the woman standing in the doorway gasped. Kevin prepared to look into her eyes but was afraid he might breakdown. Luckily his mother still wearing her work clothes ran to him and embraced him tightly whispering "_My son, my son…" _in his ear and kissing his face affectionately.

"Mom, I… I'm so sorry…" he said on the verge of tears.

"Oh my God, my baby, I was so afraid of never seeing you again, you left your plumbers badge and phone here so we couldn't contact you, what happened to you?" she said letting him go and staring into his eyes that were the same as hers. The guilt of lying to her was already in place before Kevin even said anything to her.

"I was working with the plumbers on another planet and we got trapped there for a while" he lied as she let go of him.

"I'm so sorry Kevin, wait,what happened to your neck!" she asked touching the purple ring around his neck that was caused by Revenna's electrical whip. "And why do you smell like alcohol?"

"Evelyn, who is it?"

"It's my son, he come back" said Kevin's mother teary eyed.

Kevin looked up in surprise just to see someone he didn't recognise standing behind his mother and placing a hand on her back. He was a thin man with black framed glasses and brown hair that appeared to be thinning on top. He wore a corporate suit with a badge that looked like it was the same company that his mother worked for. Kevin had never seen this man before, and started fuming up when he realised that this stranger was standing too close to his mother for his liking.

When the man saw Kevin he gave him a friendly smile and extended his hand. "Hello there young man, I'm Michael O'Connor, nice to meet you". Kevin didn't even look at his hand to shake it, he merely stared at him.

"Who are you?" asked Kevin rudely and slightly raising his voice.

"I'm Michael O'Connor, I work—"

"Yeah I got who you are; I want to know what the hell you're doing in my house".

"Kevin calm down, please, this is Mr O'Connor, a work colleague of mine, he's been helping me with work since you disappeared and I became too stressed to cope with work".

Kevin looked angrily at the way the stranger touched his mother's back "Work? Does that come before or after you've fucked my mother" he said unblinking in an extremely aggressive tone at this new man as his mother gasped at his rudeness.

"Are you going to let him talk to me like that Evelyn?" said Mr O'Connor

"Michael, please may I talk to my son in private" she said turning to him.

Mr O'Connor reluctantly left before saying "Sorry we had such a bad start, young man, I just hope you can understand" and walked back to the kitchen.

The moment Mr O'Connor's back was turned Kevin threw his hands in the air and whispered to his mother "Here we go again! Another _boyfriend_! Didn't you learn _anything_ from the glorious days of Harvey Hackett?"

"This man is different Kevin, you don't know him yet"

"It's like, I leave unwillingly for 5 minutes and every man on- the- block comes out to play with my mother"

"It's not like that, I'm not doing this to spite you, just please at least try to get to know him" begged his mother.

"I don't want to get to know him; he'll just end up trying to be another 'father figure' around here calling all the shots!". Mrs Levin was at a loss for words.

"I can't believe you're doing this to me again, you know how your marriage to Harvey Hackett was one of the reasons I ran away at eleven, he kept coming between us, he made me feel like a freak! He was afraid of me! how do you know that this man won't do the same?" asked Kevin.

"That's not fair Kevin, why do you want me to choose between you and having a relationship of my own?".

"You know by now that I'm too selfish, I can't share you with someone else" he said growing evermore exhausted.

"Please Kevin you've been gone for so long, I don't want to fight with you, I just want to take care of you, you look sick" she said tiredly. Kevin looked away from his mother.

"Whatever, I really can't even deal with this right now, I've been through hell for the past few weeks, only to come home and find out my mother's sleeping with some deadbeat prick! WHEN CAN I CATCH A BREAK?!" he yelled walking up to his room and grabbing his phone and plumbers badge, then running downstairs, without a glance in their direction.

"Kevin where are you going, you just got back?"

"Out" he said slamming the door and jumping into his car.

It was unbelievable, after coming home after weeks and not seeing his mother, he was angry with her, he couldn't remember the last time that he was actually angry with her, and now he couldn't even see her because of some man who could drive a wedge between them again. He had just come home because he had missed his mother so much and now he found himself trying to get away from her again... He raced away from the house before locating Ben and Gwen with his plumbers' badge. He drove into Bellwood CBD (downtown) and the first shop that caught his attention had a sign that read 'Jewellery' but before he when inside he took a detour again... he still had a longing for the bottle...

LOS SOLEDAD AGAIN...

Ben transformed back into himself after searching for Kevin for just under an hour as 'ultimate wildmutt' and saw Gwen shivering in the cold but she didn't want to leave, she was so stubborn. He walked up to her and she didn't look up at him but continued sitting and shivering looking close to tears.

"C'mon Gwen, let me take you home" he said softly.

She carried on looking down at the ground but eventually stood up and closed her eyes to prevent tears from sliding down her face as she leaned on her cousin for comfort. They both headed out of Los Soledad and towards Ben's sports car when a sharp 'PANG' shot through her manna field causing her eyes to glow a bright pink.

"What was that?" asked Ben.

"I don't know, I felt something!" she said stopping. They both looked at each other blank faced. It was Ben who first noticed a figure appearing behind them and pointed in its direction. "Gwen!"

She flipped her fiery wind-whipped hair around and turned around, she saw it too; a figure was visible by its silhouette in the light of a streetlamp just outside of the walls of Los Soledad. "It might be trouble, prepare yourself" Ben said as they both waited with bated breath to see who or what it was. Gwen's heart was beating furiously against her body as the figure came closer and closer until…

"Gwen, Ben?" came their way…

Gwen let out a few tightly held breaths and let her tears fall down her face as she was overcome with emotion. Ben gave an enthusiastic whoop as his friend stopped to look at them a small distance away.

"KEVIN!" yelled Gwen finally breaking into a run of which Kevin did the same and threw her arms around Kevin's neck when they reached each other and he hugged her tightly and kissed her neck repeatedly while she cried in relief onto his shoulder… The whole world seemed to stop just for the two of them to take each other in… Nothing else mattered at that moment. For Kevin nothing meant more to him because at that moment, Gwen was the only person who made him happy. He held onto her like he had never done before, she was all he had left. They both remained rocking in each other's arms for what felt like an eternity before they broke apart. Kevin cupped her face in his hands as tears welled up in his eyes, staring into her emerald-green eyes. The tiny box inside his jeans pocket felt heavier now...

"Oh my Goodness, Kevin" was all Gwen could say, she was shaking in long-held relief.

"Gwen, I missed you so much, I 'm so sorry" he said as Ben caught up to them.

When Kevin saw Ben he smiled up at him as well.

"Kevin, It's good to see you again, but I'm gonna kill you for the hell you put us through worrying about you" Ben said giving Kevin a 'bro hug'

"Hey, Ben how you been?"

"Better than you apparently, what happened to you? You're a mess"

"I was kidnapped by 'The Futha' gang, they took me to another planet, a planet cloaked so no one can see or find it, that's why I was gone for so long, I had to find my way back and you'll never guess who their new boss is! Morgg!" Kevin said now serious faced and rushing to spill everything out.

Gwen and Ben looked at each other in disbelief. "But how's that possible, how did he get out of prison?" asked Ben shocked and angry at the same time.

"The warden of Incarcetron Maximum security prison is one of his gang members he put through the system to control the flow of gangsters coming in and out of the prisons. He's still continuing with the drug trade from the last time we busted him in The Null Void".

"We've got to tell the plumbers" said Ben

"No, The Futha are about to go to war with a rival gang, if we involve the plumbers now it will only turn into a plumber bloodbath".

"We can't be keeping useful information from the plumbers though" said Gwen remembering that Kevin asked her to keep mum on Ben's shooting by the Futha gang.

"I can't believe this, there's so much activity going on underground and we weren't even aware of it!" said Ben.

Just before anyone could say anything else, there was a faint beep coming from Ben's ultimatrix. He turned the dial and a hologrammed Magister Ghalil appeared. "Magister, look who's joined us again" said Gwen placing her arms around Kevin's waist.

"Good to see that you're back Levin, I thought that I was going to have to deploy a search party to look for your body".

"Not today, Magister" said Kevin.

"Anyway I'm sorry to have to inform you guys about this over hologram but we have decided to take all plumbers be it junior or senior plumbers out of the case concerning the break in at the plumbers academy and the death of Pierce".

"What, why?" asked Ben.

"The situation has escalated as we found the burned body of another plumber on a faraway supply station planet (Kevin's heart skipped a beat) along with a few other plumbers who look like they have been burned by the same culprit and we can't risk anymore plumbers' safety, so we have given it over to a special intergalactic task team unit to find out what's happening and we'll see from there" said Ghalil fading out of his hologram.

"I can't believe it, again! What's going on here?" said Ben looking at the both of them. Gwen shook her head in shock but Kevin who had just gone noticeably quiet just stood where he was.

"Pierce is _dead_?" asked Kevin eventually, in surprise.

"Yeah, they found his body at the academy and they found him burned along with what they think is rubber melted onto his charred skin" said Gwen.

They both looked up at Kevin who couldn't return their gazes.

"Kevin, do you know anything about this?" asked Gwen. Kevin hesitated but Ben said "C'mon Kevin we're a team, we can't keep any secrets from each other".

"I think it was the 'Futha gang'. Revenna, the woman we encountered in Prosperity City told me that she had broken into the plumbers' academy using a key she took from a rookie to hack into their database and find the co-ordinates to my badge to find me and they probably 'necklaced' him, where they force car tyres over plumbers only, and pour petrol over them and set them on fire... Kevin fought the haunting thoughts in his head, he couldn't let Ben and Gwen know about him witnessing the very practice.

"Kevin if we don't tell the plumbers about this, the more of them will die this way"said Ben

"That's not going to help now, because if 'The Futha' get arrested the corrupt wardens will get them out, and we don't have any proof that the wardens are corrupt in the first place, we can't prove that they specifically broke Morgg out" said Kevin.

"Do you think they'll come after you because of your escape?" asked Gwen

"Definitely, one thing I know about gangs is that they like to each people a lesson if they defy their authority, but I suspect that they come now because they're in the middle of gang warfare so hopefully we have some time on our side".

When Ben and Gwen exchanged nervous glances at each other, he finally had to put things into perspective for them.

"Listen here guys, things are gonna change from now on, Because of your associations with me, all of our lives and the lives of our families are in imminent danger. Telling the plumbers about this will only complicate matters, so we need to come up with a plan to get 'The Futha' gang before they get us. Without the plumbers. We have to do this _our way_".

They both looked at Kevin concerned but nodded their heads in agreement.

"Okay, I gotta get outta here, I have to finish my schoolwork with Julie" said Ben snapping back into full high school teenager mode.

"Stay vigilant, they can come at anytime" said Kevin and turned to Gwen "Can I take you home, I want to talk to you"

"Sure, thanks" she said as he put his arm around her shoulder and they walked away waving goodbye to Ben who walked to his sports car.

When Kevin and Gwen got to his car he sped away and fired his question immediately.

"Gwen, I have to ask, are you okay?"

"Fine, why?" she said shrugging.

"I don't know, you seem different somehow, your skin looks pale, you look thinner" When she didn't respond he added "Please Gwen I don't want to see you changing because of what I've put you through"

"I should be asking you if you're okay, since you're the one changing because of what happened"

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't want to say anything in front of Ben but, I can smell alcohol on your breath". Kevin looked at outside the car.

"I needed a way to calm my nerves"

"I can't stop you from drinking underage Kevin but please be careful"

"That's all? No lecture or guilt tripping me to stop?" asked Kevin in surprise.

"I guess so; I can't make your choices for you, I just want to know what that old gang of yours did to you to make you go to drinking"

Kevin stopped the car abruptly and breathed heavily. He also started sweating. Gwen gasped as he closed his eyes and exhaled sharply.

"Kevin, are you okay? C'mon let's go outside for some fresh air"

Kevin got out of the car and tried to quiet the screaming man on fire in his head. Kevin sat on the hood feeling sick and Gwen went and sat next to him.

"What happened to you Kevin?" she whispered over the howling of the cold wind.

"All I can say is that I saw the devil in his paradise and it was pure hell"

"Maybe you should go and see a counsellor" but he shook his head.

"It won't make me forget what I saw; I just have to deal with this, deal with this loneliness"

"What do you mean?"

"I can see it all happening again like de ja vu, now that the gang is around me, my mother and her new 'first-name-basis' boyfriend will distance themselves from me, just like when I was eleven and I need to stay away from you and Ben to keep you safe"

"You don't need to protect me and Ben, were capable of protecting ourselves, besides I don't want you to stay away from me, I want you to always be with me like we're attached at the hip."

Kevin had never heard her talk like that before but it made his next move more meaningful.

"Gwen, I don't think I can stay away from you any longer, you're the only person that makes me happy now and you make me want to be a better person, if it weren't for you, I would have been exactly like those gangsters right now, you changed my life Gwen" he said finally allowing tears to fall down his face.

"Really?"

"Yes that's why I wanted to ask you something" he got down on one knee and pulled something small out of his pocket".

"Kevin, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying Gwendolyn Tennyson, will you marry me?"


	8. Chapter 8: A good girl gone bad

**So a friend of mine comes up to me and tells me that she's getting married... and she's still in high school! (I will never understand the logic behind this) but who are we to judge? So I guess that's where the idea came from. H8TERS gonna hate anyway!**

Chapter 8: A good girl gone bad

PLANET MECKA

"YOU LET HIM GET AWAY?" you stupid bitch, how could you let a plumber like Kevin Eleven get away? Now he'll expose us" yelled Morgg abandoning his usual calm demeanour. "And now I have to deal with this on top of preparing for the 'homicidal kids' gang who will be on us any day now"

"You told him that you were going to let him go anyway once he helped us" said Revenna chained by her arms to the leg of the chair that Morgg was sitting on.

"I was only going to release him if he joined us, Revenna and now I have to come up with a plan to get him. That's twice you have failed me now because of Kevin, clearly you still have a soft spot for him, and If I didn't know better you probably helped him escape"

"No 'sir' I didn't, I wouldn't!" she said but Morgg thought he could see right through her.

"Shut up, you useless, pathetic piece of pointless shit, I don't want to hear your fucking voice unless you're begging for your life!".

"No!I have to say this, this isn't my fault! he used his Osmosian powers to escape!" she yelled, daring to raising her voice at Morgg.

The whole filthy basement room went quiet as outraged gangsters preparing with the stolen weapons for war, looked from Morgg to Revenna because of her doing what no one had ever done before, disobey Morgg. Speak out of turn. Raise her voice at him...

"Did you just disobey a direct command? Do you want me to keep you alive long enough just for you to beg me to kill you?" he said dangerously leaning close to her face. She stared up at him in what looked like discontent. This made his blood boil, she had the beginnings of a traitor.

"S'PHOLA!" He yelled at the crowd of gangsters of which a dark thin man wearing an Arab veil around his face so only his stoned yellow eyes could be seen, who was carrying a giant steel pipe came to the front of the pack and stood before Morgg.

"Give her 'the bend over' punishment, I want to see her bleed from the inside!" he spat

"NOOOOO!" screamed Revenna in fear.

Morgg turned back to Revenna "This is your punishment Revenna, you know you deserve it!".

"Please 'sir' don't do this; I'll try harder next time!" she begged abandoning any form of bravery she had displayed earlier as she heard what her punishment was.

"I know you will, but for now" he said turning to S'phola "Bend her over, and make sure it hurts".

"No!" she exclaimed trying to get away from him by tugging on the chain that binded her to the chair as S'phola advanced on her.

"Get away from me!' she screamed as he grabbed her shoulders and taunted her "Bend over Bitch, I'm going up your ass" he said holding up the steel pipe and pinning her to the ground. He sat on her back and tore open her jumpsuit near her lower back… and she screamed in pain as the rest of the gangsters watched in amusement.

Meanwhile Morgg got up and went to Igazi puffing out a cloud of smoke from a pipe made of glass, waiting for him at the back of the basement. "You're lucky I still need you Igazi, or you would have the same fate as Revenna" he said over Revenna's screams of pain.

"We underestimated Kevin's abilities, it won't happen again" he said

"I know it won't, but anyway, Choppa went back to the supply station planet and found video footage of what happened, so here's what you're gonna do..."

LOS SOLEDAD

"Oh my God, Kevin" she said breathlessly to her boyfriend holding up a box with a ring inside.

"I'm so afraid of being apart from you again, and I'm so afraid of being alone, my mom is with someone who will make her happy, that it'll make her forget about me, you're all I have left Gwen

She nodded her head at him "Yes, Kevin Ethan Levin I will marry you" she said smiling tears of happiness, but forgetting that she was still a high school girl, she was caught up in her worldwind of emotions and if marrying Kevin was the only way to keep him from self-destruction then she was willing to do it.

He slipped the ring on her finger and she leapt into his arms as they both hugged each other in the light of the streetlamp.

"I can't believe we're doing this, I wonder what my parents will say" said Gwen

"I'm tired of waiting, my life seems to be moving backwards and I need something to look forward to that doesn't involve that gang"

THE TENNYSON HOUSE(GWEN'S HOUSE)

When Kevin pulled up to Gwen's house, she hid her left hand as she walked up the driveway and saw her brother Ken taking out the trash and staring discontentedly at her and Kevin in his car. She had completely forgotten that she had snuck out.

"Where have you been? you didn't tell us that you were leaving the house" said Ken as she passed him.

"Sorry, must have forgotten" she said simply.

Ken had had enough of her changing behaviour, and he walked to where Kevin had parked his car.

"Hey Kevin, mind if we talk a little before you go?" he asked calmly from the sidewalk.

Kevin got out of the car and followed Ken up the driveway.

"Want one?" asked Ken holding out cigarettes to him before taking one himself.

"Erm, no thanks" Kevin said

Ken lit up a smoke and puffed out a cloud of smoke before saying "It's the first time I've seen my sister so happy in a long time, and it just so happens to be when you come around".

"She's my girlfriend; I'm supposed to make her happy" said Kevin shrugging.

"Cut the bullshit Kevin" he said all of a sudden hostile. Kevin was taken aback by his sudden hostility; he had known Ken to be a rather cool person.

"I'm a guy as well and I know your type, you bad boy wannabe's think that you can get what you want from good girls like my sister until she's no longer good enough for you"

"You know I'm not like that" said Kevin defensively.

"I know good girls can't resist a bad boy, and you seem to have her conforming to your ways already".

"I don't know what you mean"

"Gwen's been sneaking out of the house, ignoring her friends, and has appeared to be miserable for a long time, the all of a sudden she's happy again in the blink of an eye and it's because you showed up". Kevin realised that she had done this because of his absence, but he couldn't tell Ken that.

"I didn't know that, I didn't tell her to do that for me, besides, I guess you don't know your sister as well as I do because _I_ know that Gwen would never change for anybody".

"Let me give you a fair warning Kevin as an older brother, if you hurt my little sister, I will come after you"

"Sorry Ken but you're not that much of a threat to me".

Ken grabbed Kevin's neck and slammed him down on the hood of his car. "No I'm not a threat right now, but just try and test me! Your alien powers are all that give you that overconfidence." Ken sneered

Gwen who saw what was happening from the lounge window ran outside. "Ken, stop it, what are you doing?" she yelled after him

Ken let go of him and narrowed his eyes at Kevin as he got up, straightened his T- shirt and got back into his car and sped off.

"Why did you do that?" asked Gwen annoyed

"So that he knows that you've got an overprotective brother" he said walking back into the house...

The next early evening, Frank and Natalie Tennyson were in the kitchen and while Mrs Tennyson was preparing dinner, she felt the need to talk to her husband and finally discuss their daughter.

"Frank, I'm so worried about Gwen, she's not been like herself lately" said Mrs Tennyson

Frank sighed, "I know, but we need to somehow make her feel comfortable to come and talk to us, if we force her, she might rebel"

"I don't think we can wait any longer, her teachers have been calling me, telling me that she's been skipping classes, not submitting schoolwork and her grades are dropping".

He shook his head, "Man, I can't believe this is happening to our Gwen, she's such a responsible child".

When Frank saw how worried his wife was he went up to her and placed his hands on her shoulders and gave her a slight squeeze.

"Don't worry Lilli, she'll be fine, we'll talk to her when she comes home today from Karate" he said softly to her and kissed her lightly on the cheek. She smiled at him feeling reassured...

"I'm home" Gwen announced an hour later as she walked into the house feeling happy that she had skipped out on karate to spend more time with Kevin after school. She was surprised to see her parents and brother sitting on the couch looking serious faced. It looked like they had been waiting for her.

"Gwen, please will you come and take a seat here with us, we want to talk to you" said her mother. Gwen now feeling slightly intimidated walked into the lounge and sat across from her parents and brother. "What's wrong?"

"Gwen, we've been worried about you for a while now because you haven't been acting like yourself lately" said Mrs Tennyson

"What are you talking about?" she said confused.

"Your maths, science and history teachers have already called me to tell me that your grades are dropping and that you've been skipping out on school and karate for a while now. Not to mention sneaking out of the house, not eating, and ignoring your school friends" Gwen dropped her gaze when she heard what her mother was saying.

"Gwen were not mad at you, we just want to what's going on with you, please talk to us, we want to understand why you've changed so much over the past few weeks"

"Are you hanging around with a rough crowd, who want you be 'cool' like them?" asked Ken with attitude bursting in his tone.

"Ken please, you're not helping" snapped their mother.

Gwen felt cornered, she realised that it was best just to tell her family so that she doesn't lose their trust.

"It was Kevin, he'd gone missing for a few weeks and I was so afraid that he might be dead, so I skipped school to go looking for him, and I couldn't concentrate at school because of my worrying of him, but that's okay now because he's back. Which reminds me, I do actually have something to tell you" she said smiling again.

The Tennysons exchanged nervous glances that read 'I hope you're not pregnant' practically coming out of their expressions.

"Kevin and I are getting married, see" she said extending her left hand out for them to see the ring. Gwen's parents and brother all sat frozen in their seats not knowing how to react. They all stared open-mouthed at Gwen's hand before Gwen's mother shaking her head slowly finally whispered "You can't be serious".

"I am serious"

"I knew that stupid boy was up to something!" said Ken pounding his fist into the couch.

"Take that off, right now" warned their father pointing to the ring on her finger.

"What, why?"

"Do I even have to tell you, you're one of the highest achieving students at one of the top prep schools in Bellwood, and you would be naïve to think that we would allow you to throw all that away for some troublemaking, uneducated ruffian boy!" said her father raising his voice.

"Do you think I care about all that? I almost lost Kevin! I've never been so afraid in my life and he's going through a tough time right now, I need to be there for him before he somehow harms himself or gets into trouble"

"And you think that marriage is the best way to do that, you don't even know how much you have to put into a marriage to make it last" said their mother

"I'm all he has left to make him happy".

"That's not a good enough reason to marry anyone, have you thought about who will pay the bills, how will you keep up with school. It isn't like you to be so thoughtless; I never thought that you could be changed by a boy" said Mr Tennyson

"You can't stop me; I've already made up my mind" said Gwen standing up.

"No! I forbid it, I forbid you to see that boy ever again, if you want me to treat you like a spoilt child then I will" he said also standing up.

"You can't do this to me, Kevin needs me"

"He's the reason you're acting like an out of control teenager" said their mother

"I won't stay away from him, he's the only one who hasn't acted like my stuck up parents"

Gwen's father raised his hand at Gwen and was about to swing at her face before her mother yelled "FRANK, DON'T". Ken went and stood in between his sister and father with his arms outstretched keeping them apart.

"Do it dad, show us what a real man you are"... said Gwen dangerously, her mother gasped at Gwen's words, even Ken didn't know how to react.

"No, unlike your boyfriend I wont taint the prosperous lives of young girls who have everything going for them" he said surprisingly calm.

"You're not going to change my mind" said Gwen.

"GET OUT! GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE RIGHT NOW, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO OUR RULES THEN YOU DON'T GET TO STAY HERE! bellowed her father loosing any cool he had left.

Gwen ran upstairs with tears in her eyes to her room and grabbed anything that she could find in a hurry, her laptop, spare clothing, some money and her cellphone and threw them all in a sports bag, ran downstairs of which her mother and brother tried to stop her.

"Gwen, please don't go, your father was just angry, you just need to calm down, the both of you". She paid no attention to her mother and continued walking before Ken grabbed her arm. "Gwen, think about what you're doing, you're too smart to do this"

"Can everybody just leave me alone, clearly I'm not wanted here, so I'll go where people actually need me".

Gwen opened the front door and stormed out with her mother calling after her. "Gwen, Gwen please come back!"… But she didn't turn back at all, instead she ran as fast as she could down the street with bag in hand...

THE LEVIN HOUSE

The fear of an eminent attack from The Futha gang continued to plague the Ben Ten team especially because of the news that two more plumbers had been 'necklaced' over the past few days. Ben had decided to come and meet Kevin and Gwen who had showed up at Kevin's house a few days earlier saying that she was kicked out and asked if she could stay with him, which was approved by Mrs Levin.

"Maybe if you talk to your parents, Gwen then you'll understand how they feel" Mrs Levin said one evening before she left the house for a date with her new man Mr O'Connor

"No, thanks Mrs Levin I just can't do that right now" said Gwen opening the door for Mrs Levin as if she was already a permanent resident in the house.

"Just be easy on them, I know how hard it can be to have your child run away" she said looking at Kevin who was talking to Ben on the phone in the kitchen.

"I didn't run away, I was kicked out, so it's not like I had a choice"

"You always have a choice, just remember that," she said exiting the house and yelled goodbye to Kevin who waved at her still busy on the phone.

"Just got off the phone with Ben, he'll be here any minute" said Kevin walking to Gwen.

When Ben arrived the three of them sat in Kevin's room and Ben busied himself with Gwen's laptop.

"It says here that Morgg is still a registered inmate at Incarcetron Maximum Security prison, serving sentences for corruption, defeating the ends of justice, possession of illegal substances, drug trafficking… he should be in prison for over ten years…"

"The warden must have kept him on the sheet so as to not arouse any suspicion" said Kevin.

"But why is it that no one's noticed that there's a prisoner on the sheet but he's never present?" asked Gwen

"The warden once again must be paying the prison guards to keep quiet about it" he said

"I can't believe the level of corruption happening at the prisons, once this is all over, we have to request that the prisons be externally monitored by an independent and undercover plumber from now on" she said

"Hang on guys, I'm getting Cooper in on the Skype, Cooper are you there?" asked Ben onto the laptop.

"What are you doing?! we can't involve other people!" said Kevin

"Cooper is our friend and he's the best when it comes to his self-made technology, _and,_ I'm just doing this _our_ way like you asked" said Ben understanding that Kevin's hostility to Cooper was because of Cooper's crush on Gwen.

"Cooper here" said the bulky blonde haired plumber appearing on the laptop screen and blushed when he saw Gwen to which Kevin shot him a nasty look.

"Hey Cooper, did you find what I asked for?" asked Ben

"Yes and no, my intergalactic radar did pick up a strange signal coming from somewhere but, where the signal came from there was nothing, no planet, no matter at all, just empty space, and the signal vanished after a few seconds"

"That's because the planet is being hidden by a cloaking device" said Kevin

"Do you have any devices that can pick up hidden planets and their location even when they're being cloaked?" asked Ben

"Sure, but you'll have to give me a while I'll need to isolate the exact spot where the signal came from and see if I can try and tamper with the cloaking device on the planet. By the way, what's going on anyway on this hidden planet? Why is this planet hidden, why are you trying to find it?" he spewed out quickly.

"Believe me, the less you know the better, and remember, you can't tell the plumbers about this, it's undercover" said Ben of which Cooper just shrugged. "Thanks Cooper".

"I guess we'll have to wait for Cooper to respond. In the meantime I'd better get home to study, keep a watch for Cooper on your laptop Gwen" Ben said.

"By the way, you might want to talk to your parents sooner than later about this kicked out, or was it run away situation" said Ben from the doorway.

"I have nothing to say to them Ben"

"But they keep complaining to my parents who blame me for all of this" he said.

She looked away and when Ben left out of Kevin's room, Kevin turned to her sitting on his bed.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm worried about you Gwen, your brother told me last night when he tried to intimidate me, that your grades are dropping and that you've been bunking school and ignoring your friends"

"So, I when through a lot when you were kidnapped"

"But Ben's right about your parents, it's not like you to do this, please promise me that you won't change on my account, one of the reasons I love you so much is because you taught me how to be a good person by example"

She stared into his dark eyes and saw how sincere he was, this made her feel ever more attached to him.

"I promise" she said.

She didn't understand herself why she had changed so much, why she was doing things associated with bad girl tendencies but her fear of losing Kevin to a vicious street gang, or to self-destruction had something to do with it.

Kevin standing in front of her while she sat on his bed, kissed her forehead and then kissed her lips and was about to draw away from her face before Gwen closed her eyes and remembered something the female gang member once said to her _"Doesn't look like she can fuck you better than I did_"… Something stirred up inside her, an unexplained feeling that her old self would be ashamed of.

"Wait Kevin, please don't stop" she said pulling him back towards him.

"Are you sure?"

She responded by kissing him and drawing him closer. Kevin kissed her as well and then moved down to her neck as she tilted her head to the side and let out a stifled moan. Her soft moan gave him the confidence to move on lower to her upper chest. She nearly sent him crazy when she placed her hands on the bulge forming at the front of his jeans. "What are you tryin'a do to me Gwen" he whispered in her ear. She looked up at him like she had never done before, she gave a seductive stare that excited him along with her sexy smirk. The old Gwen was clearly not in the building...

The early sunrise woke Gwen up the next day; she didn't know why she woke up in such a peaceful mood until she remembered the night before, her first intimate encounter with her fiancé who had fallen asleep on top of her with his head still on her chest. They were both wrapped up in a tangled mess with his blanket on his bed. She remembered all the neck kissing, hair grabbing, hair clenching, name exclaiming, loud moaning, toe curling, back arching, pleasure screaming and body thrusting moments of the previous night. She remembered Kevin kissing her stomach then going lower and lower... she smiled up at the ceiling, thankful that Ben hadn't come back to check on them later that night. She let out a satisfied breath and stroked Kevin's dark hair lying on her naked chest which woke him up. The both of them said nothing to each other for a while and just smiled and chuckled and stared at each other. It was as if 'The Futha' gang had never even made an appearance.

"Good morning" he said kissing her cheek.

"Hi" was all she could muster.

"How are you feeling after last night, did I hurt you, 'cause I mean you were erm, kind of tight being a virgin and all?"

"No, I'm just trying to soak it all in really" she said sitting up as Kevin finally got off of her.

"Well I have to say you have a beautiful body" he said to her wrapping a towel over his lower body.

Gwen smiled up at him and blushed a deep red, before sinking back onto the bed, she never thought that she would ever get intimate with Kevin while she was still in school but she justified it in her head that they were due to be married anyway.

Later that morning when Mrs. Levin came down to make them all breakfast, she saw Kevin and Gwen sitting on the couch, snuggling, hugging and kissing.

"Good morning, what's going on with you two today, you're all over each other?" she said walking to the kitchen

Kevin and Gwen didn't respond but they shared the same relief that she came home late enough not to have heard what was happening in her son's bedroom. Their loving moment was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell and a sharp knock of the door which finally separated them. Kevin got off the couch reluctantly, went to the door, opened it and was surprised to see a stern looking Magister Ghalil and a few of his officers standing at the doorway with some squad ships behind them blinking their red lights. "Kevin Ethan Levin?" he asked.

"Yes" said Kevin confused at why the Magister was asking for his name even though he knew him, but this wasn't as surprising as seeing him and other plumbers at his door. Gwen came and stood next to him when she noticed the Magister standing there.

"You are under arrest for acting as an accomplice for a robbery on planet Shayana"…


	9. Chapter 9: Locked up

**Chapter 9: Locked up**

THE LEVIN HOUSE

"Excuse Me?"

"Turn around and put your hands behind your back" he said in his official sounding police voice.

"Magister, what are you doing?" asked Gwen

Mrs Levin came to the doorway to see what all the commotion was about as well.

"I have a warrant for Kevin's arrest, effective immediately" he said stepping up to Kevin

"What, why?" asked Gwen

"New CCTV footage has just emerged that Kevin helped members of a notorious gang with a robbery of a supply station planet some weeks ago, where plumbers were killed, isn't that right Kevin?. "Prison records show that you have a history with that gang"

"Officer, there must be some mistake Kevin isn't a criminal anymore" said Mrs Levin.

Kevin said nothing; he merely just stood there in shock.

"Yes, magister you have it all wrong, Kevin was the one who was kidnapped by that gang" said Gwen no longer keeping the secret.

"Kidnapped? Kevin you told me you were trapped there while you were on plumber business" his mother said surprised.

"Yes, well he kept the part about aiding that gang out of his explanation, the footage shows him using his osmosian powers to break open a vault"

Kevin couldn't return their looks but instead looked at the Magister "They threatened my mother" Kevin said finally

"Why didn't you tell the plumbers? And because of your silence we had our own officers being killed, one of them a soon-to-be father"

Gwen when silent and just stared in disbelief at Kevin with his mother.

Magister Ghalil turned Kevin around and cuffed him. "Didn't think that I'd ever see the day that I would have to arrest one of my own"

"It's not my fault, please you have to understand" he said trying to resist, he struggled against the Magister's cuffs.

"Stop resisting Kevin, you'll be in even more trouble, you know this"

"Kevin, tell me this isn't true, tell me that you haven't gone back to that gang" said his mother looking on the verge of tears, her worst nightmare was coming true, that her son was involved in a gang again. He had gone back to his previous life after all the progress he'd made.

"Mom, don't believe them, you know that I've changed, you know this, I'm a plumber and I've helped Ben save the world, I bought us this house so we can have a place to live together, I'm no longer with that old gang" he said his voice breaking while Ghalil's officers pulled Kevin towards the squad ships, but Kevin wasn't going easily.

Mrs Levin covered her mouth with her hand and began sobbing as she watched as they led her son away to his arrest.

"I can't believe this; I can't believe you lied to me, to us" said Gwen following next to them.

"Gwen it's not that simple, you have no idea what those monsters said they would do if I wouldn't help them" he said

"That's all you can say, it's not that simple, I left my parents to come and be here with you because I thought that you needed my support after your ordeal, just to find out that you actually helped them and didn't stop them from killing another plumber?" she yelled in anger

"I couldn't, you don't understand"

The commotion was starting to attract some onlookers on the street who watched, took pictures, and texted about it on social networks, as Gwen and Kevin yelled at each other as he was being hauled away.

"Here, take this back, I don't want it" she said stuffing the ring he gave her, back into his jeans pocket.

"Please don't do this Gwen, I'll sort everything out" he begged.

She watched as Ghalil placed Kevin in his squad ship, Kevin looked at them one last time, pained at how everything was turning out. Gwen, staring at him to furious to speak and his mother crying in her hands...

As Kevin sat in the ship, en route to a Galvin hoding station where prisoners awaiting trial were held, he was distraught, his mother was crying, she was actually crying, he had made his mother cry after promising her that he wouldn't ever go back to his bad boy ways. The horrified look on her face, the denial she tried to believe that her son was not involved in gang life was unbearable, the way she looked at him. She would never trust him again. And Gwen…

THE TENNYSON HOUSE(GWEN'S SIDE)

The ring of a doorbell on a busy Saturday morning got Mrs Tennyson off the couch next to her husband and she went to go and answer it. The minute she opened the door her heart gave a leap as she saw her daughter and her pained green eyes. She was carrying the same bag that she had left with just days ago, but her hair looked unkempt and so did she.

"Mom…"

Her mother embraced her tightly and dug her fingers into the hair she had given her.

"Aren't you mad at me?" Gwen asked

"No, I was afraid for you Gwen, I thought you were so far gone that we wouldn't see you again"

"I don't know why I acted the way I did, I was so caught up in my feelings and fears for him that I wanted to sacrifice my education just to make him happy". 'I'm so sorry"

"You're already forgiven Gwen but I'm not the one you should be talking to" she said pointing at the man sitting on the couch reading a newspaper.

Gwen took a long breath and slowly walked to her father. He simply carried on reading his newspaper but what Gwen didn't know was that he knew that he had heard her at the door but didn't go to greet her, he wanted her to come to him.

"Dad"

"Hm?" he said simply with his face still hidden behind the paper.

Gwen knew her father very well; she knew that he wanted her to explain herself properly.

"Daddy, I'm sorry for what I said to you, and for what I did, I was behaving like I was out of control and I'm sorry dad, I wasn't acting like myself and you had every right to kick me out, if you could just give me another chance..."

Frank Tennyson lowered the newspaper and looked at her; she was close to tears, "Are you still a teenage rebel?"

"No, I promise"

"Come here" he said standing up and opening his arms wide and she fell into her dad's arms crying. "It's okay Gwen, I'm sorry too for how I reacted, I was so angry and frustrated at your behaviour that I snapped. It was so difficult to see my little girl behaving like you did"

"Well, I'm going back to school properly now, and I just want to forget everything that happened" she said still hanging on to her dad.

"What's all the commotion about?, hey the bad girl is back, I knew you'd be back!..." said Ken from the top of the stairs, still wearing his pyjamas and walking down the stairs to hug his little sister.

"Okay Ken, I get you, I'm sorry, but for what I don't know" she said pouting at him and he just chuckled. The Tennyson family was finally reunited once again.

THE GALVIN HOLDING STATION

When Kevin got to the Galvin plumbers station which held unsentenced criminals in holding cells, he was escorted through the station by Magister Ghalil and his plumbers. Almost immediately as he stepped into the station, all eyes were on him. All the plumbers that he had worked with, looked up to, were staring at him in discontent. In the background a radio from another planet was broadcasting the news...

"…Latest news that Kevin Ethan Levin, the plumber who worked alongside Ben Ten and his cousin Gwen Tennyson, was arrested this morning for his involvement in a notorious gang responsible for the gruesome deaths of plumbers killed while trying to stop the gang. A spokesman for the plumbers said that they could not comment as of yet, details of where he is being kept remain unknown at the moment but we'll keep you updated…"

Then shouts from fellow plumbers ensued. "Backstabber… traitor… should be ashamed of yourself… call yourself a plumber… once a criminal always a criminal"… how could you betray us…" they yelled at him.

"That's enough everyone, get back to work!" yelled Magister Ghalil.

The magister gave him over to other plumbers who took his fingerprints, mug shot and placed him in a holding cell. He sat on the rigid bed and closed his eyes. He tried not to cry still picturing his mother and hearing a man's haunting scream inside his head, then seeing the place he was in, he felt like giving up, telling the 'Futha gang' that they had won, because his life was a misery... he found a small piece of metal on the floor of his cell and felt the coldness of the metal against his skin...

THE TENNYSON HOUSE (GWEN'S SIDE)

Ben rushed as fast as he could to Gwen's house; they were now in a crisis again. When he got there he didn't even bother ringing the doorbell, he just barged into his aunt and uncles' house and found his relatives sitting on the couch, huddling around Gwen. When she saw Ben, Gwen stood up and went to go and hug him while her parents remained on the couch.

"Gwen what happened? The whole universe is buzzing about this, why was he get arrested".

"He lied to us Ben; he was actually helping those gangsters".

"What? I don't believe that for one minute, he wouldn't do that".

"There was CCTV footage that they just found of the burglary on that supply station ship".

"Then they must have threatened him or blackmailed him because Kevin wouldn't do something like this willingly, he has no motive".

"It doesn't matter now Ben, he lied to us and all of the plumbers and that'll make him look guilty either way, and now a woman has lost her husband and father of her unborn child because he didn't bother to help the plumber on that station".

"Don't you see Gwen, he kept it a secret because if he told them that he was coerced into stealing for them then he would have to tell the plumbers about the old gang and they would have gone and looked for the gang during their most dangerous time".

"We can't do anything about this right now".

"We need to bail him out so he can explain himself before the whole universe sees him as a criminal again".

"Too late" said Ken listening on their conversation. "He's already trending on social networks; see" he said showing them his tablet device where '#kevinelevencriminal' was all over his timeline with mostly not so positive messages from earth people.

"C'mon Gwen we have to the Galvin holding station to bail him out".

"No, I'm not going, I've spent too much time trying to support him and all he did was lie to me and tear me away from my family".

"You're just speaking out of anger, Gwen just try to think past his lie and think about why he would do that".

"No, I have worked to do; I have to catch up on my grades again, I just want to forget everything that happened". He just looked at her walk back up to her room and had no choice but to do this on his own…

THE GALVIN HOLDING STATION

Kevin lay in silence on his first night in prison in years. He had had a bad night remembering what it was like sleeping in a prison cell, the self-inflicted bleeding on his wrists and arms showed that. His misery had reached a new level... until he heard a familiar voice.

"Hello I'm looking for Kevin Levin…"

"Oh my God you're thee Ben Ten aren't you, I have to say it's an honour meeting you, could you sign my journal?" said some plumber.

"Sorry but I don't have time for fans today, I really have to get something done".

"Understood, this is about your friend Kevin right?... follow me please".

Kevin heard footsteps approaching his dark cell until a plumber showed up with Ben. He couldn't bare to look at Ben with all his guilt. He merely sat watching the wall.

"This place already getting to you huh?" said Ben.

"What do you want Tennyson?" he said sounding like he had already given up all hope.

"I know why you didn't tell the plumbers about this, you were trying to save them from finding the Futha gang during gang warfare for which many more of them would be killed, you just don't have any proof, you're noble Kevin"

"Yeah well noble won't get me out of here; it won't convince my mom or the whole universe that I'm not a criminal anymore"

"Buy maybe money can get you out of here" said Ben taking out a golden cube from his jeans pocket.

"Is that the cube that the Luodans gave us to go and give up the Tiffin in exchange for peace?" asked Kevin

"Yeah, you never gave it back so I went to your house to get it; I figured that It could pay for your bail".

"You were at my house... How's my mom doing?" asked Kevin afraid of the answer.

"Not so good that's why we need to fix this mess so she can believe that you're a good guy again, she really needs you" said Ben not bothering to lie to him.

Kevin looked pained at the ground, the cuts on his wrists were starting to hurt again.

"And Gwen?"

"She's back at home with her family; she wants to concentrate on the schooling that she missed out on"

"I can't believe it, It all happened so fast, one minute we were all happy then..." he said depressed.

"Let's just concentrate on getting you out of here" said Ben

Ben walked away to the reception area. "Hi Ma'am, I came to apply for bail for Kevin Levin"

The receptionist checked Kevin's hologrammed sheet for a while before saying "Hmmm, it says here that he has been denied bail".

"What! That's not fair, he can't be held here indefinitely forever"

"I know Mr Tennyson, but you'll have to take it up with the judge, I don't have a say in the matter".

"Fine" he said walking back to Kevin, "bad luck buddy, we have to wait until you see the judge"

"No bail allowed" asked Kevin

"No, I don't get it either but it's best just to play by their rules so we don't look even more guilty. I'm sorry, I'll have to see you later"

"Hey Ben" asked Kevin hiding his face in the shadows so Ben wouldn't see him crying

"yeah?"

"Thanks"

"For what? I didn't get you out of here" said Ben frustrated

"For still trying..."

"See you soon" said Ben feeling touched.

As Ben walked down the hallway, he felt a little uneasy at how one of the plumbers looked at him. It was like he was he had killed his mother, the way he stared at him so hatefully, so suspiciously, but when Ben passed him in the corridor, he gave a fake smile and bowed slightly. When the plumber bowed at him, Ben noticed something dull that had lost its shine reveal itself on the young plumbers neck. Ben felt troubled but couldn't remember where he had seen something like it before...

GWEN'S SCHOOL

"... Can anyone still remember the name of the Tsar during the Russian Revolution... anyone?"

For most of the class who weren't sleeping with their heads down, doodling in their history books, texting under the desk, they were nervously looking around praying that someone would answer the question, so they wouldn't get singled out to answer it. Luckily their star peer was present once again and she lifted her hand up.

"Gwen, let's hear it"

"It was Tsar Nicholas II, Mr Hertzog"

"Well done, Gwen and lucky for all of you that someone answered or I would have to give you all an assignment so you could answer in future". Gwen suddenly became the most loved person in that classroom. Everyone gave her thumbs up, including her best friend Emily sitting behind her.

When class was over, Mr Hertzog called her to his desk.

"It's good to see you're back at school Gwen, keep it up"

"Thanks sir and I've just finished the first assignment you gave us, Communism and the Russian Revolution"

"Great, but you've already missed the deadline for late work, so unfortunately I'm going to have to minus 10% from your overall grade"

"Understood, I promise not to do this ever again"

"We were all young once, and did irresponsible things; I just hope you've learned your lesson". She nodded at her history teacher and walked out of the classroom.

At lunch she explained to Emily about what happened. "I'm so sorry for ignoring you; I was wrapped up in my addiction to my boyfriend"

"That's okay Gwen, every girl has been through the emotions of wanting to run away with our bad boy boyfriends because they happen to be the most important thing in the world" How've you been holding up since Kevin's arrest"

"Well I'm just focusing on getting my grades where they need to be and whipping myself back into karate shape, but I haven't given up on him, I can't, I just have to wait and see what happens"

"C'mon Gwen, you need to let him go, you're gunning to make it into Ivy League in a few years, and being associated with gangsters won't get you there."

"It's not that easy Em, there's a huge complicated story behind this and I feel like I'm betraying him by not doing anything, I'm the only person he counts on to never give up on him".

"Did he lie to you and betray you?". Gwen nodded "That's all there is to it" said Emily simply.

Gwen had a sinking feeling about this, she couldn't leave Kevin alone in jail and not do anything about it, but, she couldn't miss out on anymore school work either. The stressed feeling made her feel dizzy and nauseous, but she soon realised that the nausea she felt came from somewhere else... "Em, would you excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom, I don't feel well"

"What's wrong?"

"I think I need to puke" she said running away and clutching her abdomen absent-mindedly...

THE GALVIN STATION

The young and suspicious plumber who had stared at Ben in extreme discontent, knocked on the warden's door and entered.

"Sir, Ben Tennyson has left" he said handing the Warden some papers.

"Good, prepare for transport and give this to the officer in charge of guarding Kevin" he said handing the plumber some papers.

The young plumber walked down the corridor to the half-asleep plumber sitting outside Kevin's cell.

"Kowalski, these are from the warden, he just got them".

The plumber named Kowalski shook himself awake and put his glasses on to read the papers.

"That's odd; it says here that Kevin is to be transferred to the Null Void prison".

"That's right, Warden Touga just received this request that Kevin El—_Levin_ is to be transported to the Null Void immediately".

"But who authorised this, we don't have permission from the judge, or from any of the magisters at Plumber headquarters, we can't just move him to a high level prison without proper permission".

"Warden Touga _did_ get permission, from the Magister, now he wants to transport Kevin now" said the plumber through gritted teeth losing patience.

Kowalski was taken aback by his impatience but stood up and knocked against the steel bars of Kevin's cell.

"Kevin Levin, get up, you're being transferred". Kevin who had been lying on the rigid bed with his eyes still open stood up and approached the officer on the other side of the cell. "What, where am I being taken?"

"The Null Void".

"WHAT! You can't do that, you can't just transfer me to a deadly prison without my sentencing" he said fuming, the Null Void was crawling with villains that he had placed there himself, and he didn't think that he could go there again after being incarcerated there when he was young.

"I know, but I'm just following the wardens orders" he said unlocking the gate and cuffing Kevin. While he was escorting Kevin towards the hangar at the back of the Galvin station, Kevin whispered to him "Don't you think there's something fishy going on here, taking me to the Null Void just like that?".

The plumber kept quiet for a while before saying 'That's not my fault, I can't disobey the Warden".

When they reached the hangar sometime later, Kevin was handed to another plumber who would transport him and not the officer in charge of guarding him in prison, it happened to be another of the unusual occurrences that night.

OUTSIDE EARTH'S ORBIT

When Ben was flying back to planet Earth, still with a feeling of uneasiness, Cooper showed up on his monitor.

"Hey Ben, I reached your cousin earlier but she told me to go directly to your screen".

"That's okay, what's up".

"I found it Ben, I found it!" he said enthusiastically."The hidden planet, I managed to find the signal again when a fleet of starships broke into its atmosphere a couple of hours ago".

"That's great Cooper, thanks, what did you see happening on the planet?" asked Ben knowing that it was probably a rival gang making their way to the planet for a fight.

'I couldn't actually see much when I tried to take a closer look, it looked like it was covered in a brown blanket of dust or something…"

"That's okay, but it's a bit unfortunate that you found it now because we can't even investigate it now because Kevin's arrested, and Gwen wants to focus on school.."

"Maybe I can help then?"

"We'll see, let me try and talk to Gwen again, there's something bothering me and I need to figure what it is".

"Okay see you later, Cooper out"…

THE NULL VOID PRISON

Kevin stepped off the ship in the strange pocket dimension that the prison was built in and couldn't help but shiver at the feeling of being in the Null Void prison again.

"C'mon, get going filth" said the plumber pushing him to the teleporter.

Kevin knew that no plumber would treat him like that, prisoner or not. Something was definitely going on. The alleged plumber held his cuffed hands a little tighter as they beamed into the entrance of the Null Void prison. His suspicions were again raised when he realised that he didn't recognise any of the plumbers working there, nor did he recognise the warden. The warden who was an obese alien exchanged glances with the alleged plumber dragging Kevin away.

The plumber who was escorting him, didn't go in the direction of the cell, but rather to the outside courtyard where the rest of the prisoners were, and Kevin's heart skipped a beat when he saw what looked like Revenna at the entrance of the courtyard, lying on the ground with her tail wrapped around her legs, looking paler than usual.


	10. Chapter 10: The Null Void Breakdown

Chapter 10: The Null Void breakdown

"Revenna?"

He tried walking to her and not surprisingly, the plumber let him do so after he uncuffed his hands. Revenna stood up slowly and leaned against the wall when she saw Kevin approach her. Kevin noticed that she didn't look much like herself; her unfocused red eyes looked up and down at him. She looked like she was in pain.

"Kevin Eleven, you thought that you could escape from us without paying the price and now the universe hates you" she said smiling up at him.

Kevin let his anger get the best of him as he closed his hand around Revenna's neck and pushed her head against the wall. "You and that gang of yours have ruined my life for the last time" he said to her.

"You look so good, I miss you, why you around aren't anymore baby?" she said placing her hand on his shoulder of which he smacked off, she looked delusional; like she was hallucinating or stoned. Suddenly, she let out a yelp of pain and clutched her lower abdomen, and scrunched her eyes in pain of which Kevin let go of her neck.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked surprised.

"Don't pretend like you give a shit about me when I know you don't, you never gave a shit about me before, so why start now?" she said taking out a syringe from her small utility bag and stabbing it in her pelvis.

"Officer what's going on here, why is she allowed in the men's section of the prison and why have you casually uncuffed me?" asked Kevin.

"None of your business now get moving" said the plumber.

This definitely confirmed what Kevin thought; the prison was corrupted by his old gang, and as he walked inside the courtyard, the sight of humans and aliens, some of whom were memebrs of the gang and some real criminals of the Null Void, enjoying themselves reminded him of the home planet of the 'Futha gang'. It definitely didn't look like a prison.

Some were gambling, drinking, playing loud music, having stabbing fights, tattooing each other. Most of the inmates were surrounded by scantily clad women from all over the universe; stuffing money into their underwear, bras and anywhere they had, and getting high on whatever they were inhaling, and all of them looked like they were selling themselves as services to the criminal all winked, smirked and flashed themselves at Kevin when he walked past. It made him feel sick looking at their exploitation. The level of corruption at the prison, he thought must have been brought about by Morgg himself.

The plumber led a uncuffed Kevin into the very middle of the courtyard, and turned him around to face the direction of a man standing on top of a table. Kevin didn't even need him to turn around for Kevin to see who it was. He was however grateful, that he wasn't at his mother's house and wanted revenge on him personally.

Igazi turned around and looked at the large crowd mixed with both criminals and gangsters, then looked directly at Kevin.

"Kevin, I see that you've been arrested like Revenna and me, for robbing planet 'Shayana'."I just wonder where the video footage came from that implicated you?..."

Kevin didn't even entertain it, he knew it was him and that Igazi was looking for revenge for escaping but he was ready for it.

"I've been told to ask you if you would join our gang one last time, so I'm asking best friend" he said jumping down and stepping closer to Kevin."Are you in or are you out?".

Kevin did not hesitate. "I'm out, I've been out and will stay out for good, forever" he said confidently.

Igazi stared at Kevin then walked back to the table and stood on top of it again. "inmates of the Null Void, I have with me here a suitcase of one solid piece of a gold cube from my boss, it has an unlimited amount of money loaded onto it from every planet in this universe, and it's tax-free" he said opening the suitcase and displaying a single cube that resembled the one he got from the Luodands' only it was much bigger.

"The first one to kill Kevin Eleven and bring his head to me, will get this cube…"

GWEN'S SCHOOL

After school, Ben drove up to Gwen's school in the upper middle class neighbourhood in Bellwood where her school was situated and tried to find her in the crowd of preppy students exiting the school. After searching for a while, he identified her a short distance away by her fiery red ponytail hair, wheeling her friend Emily out of the school gates and chatting.

"Hey, Gwen, can I talk to you, real quick?" he called out to her from his car parked on the street adjacent to the school.

Gwen looked in his direction and wheeled her friend towards the car but Emily took over and wheeled herself away after shooting Ben a nasty look.

"What do you want Ben?" she asked approaching him at his window.

"Erm lets just go for a drive for now please, I want to talk about Kevin"

After she sighed a tired sigh, she got into the car and he sped off with her. "What is it now?" she asked

"Kevin's been denied bail but we have to get him out, right now"

"It's called crime and punishment Ben"

"Can you at least pretend that you care about him for one second?" yelled Ben

"I do care about him, how can you even say that to me?" said Gwen stung.

"We'll you don't act like it, he's been counting on you to not give up on him and here you are going back to school like nothing's happened".

Gwen looked out the window for a while before replying to her cousin. "I was going to marry him, Kevin I mean"

"What?" asked Ben

"He proposed to me, after we found him in the Los Soledad desert, I said yes to him, we were both very emotional that night, it's the reason that I left home, because I showed my parents the ring he gave me"

"Oh my God, I never knew, what happened now?"

"I gave it back to him when he was arrested. I gave up my family, my friends, my grades for him, and he couldn't even tell me that he helped his former gang steal weapons for a gang fight"

"I'm so sorry Gwen but whatever's going on between the two of you has to be put aside for now, because something's going on with Kevin and that gang of his, that we don't have the full story of."

"Kevin and I said that we would never allow our relationship to interfere in our plumber work, but I guess it was inevitable"

"So, does that mean you'll help me?"

"I have karate later, but I can see that something's bothering you"

"Yes, it's the Galvin holding station where they're keeping Kevin; I don't have a good feeling about that place"

"Why what happened?"

"I don't really know, but the plumber there gave me a look that didn't say 'I love you Ben Ten' like all my other fans, straight after telling me that he was one of my biggest fans!" said Ben.

Gwen rolled her eyes "Okay so there's something wrong with him because he's no longer your biggest fan?"

"Not just that, he was wearing something around his neck, something shiny, and we know that when were on duty, especially in our uniforms, we can't wear any jewellery or anything that isn't part of the uniform"

"Something shiny? Like a necklace or a chain?"

Ben looked away deep in thought about what he might have seen or whether he had seen it before, until… it dawned on him. The no bail, the nasty look the fact that he didn't recognise the plumber and he wasn't wearing rookie clothing.

"Gwen, I think that Kevin might be in danger, we need to get to the Galvin station now" he said already heading in another direction and speeding off to Kevin's garage in the Bellwood city to the Rustbucket II spaceship.

'What do you mean, how do you know?"

"Don't you remember that day in Prosperity City, where we ran into Kevin's gang; do you remember what they were wearing around their necks?"

Gwen gasped as she realised just what Ben was talking about, she just hoped that they were mistaken...

THE GALVIN HOLDING STATION

They both ran into the station throwing their space protection suits off and heading to the reception area. Ben, who got there first yelled out of breath at the receptionist.

'Ma'am, I'm Ben Tennyson and I believe that one of the plumbers here is an imposter" yelled Ben out of breath.

The bewildered receptionist shot him a surprised look, 'Please Mr Tennyson, calm down, I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"When I came here to visit Kevin Levin, I spotted one of the plumbers acting suspiciously, and I think he might be out to get Kevin"

"I must tell you that we do not have any imposters here, and you don't have to worry about your friend, he was transferred last night"

Ben and Gwen looked at each other anxiously. "Do you know where they took him ma'am?" asked Gwen politely

'The Null Void Prison, the warden received a letter instructing him to transfer him there"

Ben and Gwen looked at her in shock and she was taken aback by their expressions. While Gwen ran back to the Rustbuckett and picking up her helmet for air, Ben stayed behind for a few seconds.

"Ma'am, please may I ask you to stay here and not talk to the warden about us anymore, we believe that he could be a criminal posing as a warden". The shocked look on her face reassured Ben that she would follow his instructions. He ran after Gwen into the Rustbuckett and towards the Null Void prison but before that they decided to stop over somewhere else, if their suspicions were correct, they needed more help.

THE NULL VOID PRISON

The inmates of the Null Void prison looked at the suitcase with their mouths hanging; they had never seen such riches before in their lives. They all turned toward Kevin and one by one looked at him hungrily with their greedy eyes. Kevin, sticking out amongst the inmates as he was the only one not wearing a prison outfit, saw that he was completely outnumbered by at least a few hundred to one. He slowly backed away but this only made the criminals charge after him all at once. "LET'S GO!"

A few hundred people came running at him which sent the prostitutes out of harm's way, and took out their weapons and started swinging knives, whips, and all sorts of dangerous weapons at him. One of the first aliens to reach Kevin, swung a steel knife at him of which Kevin grabbed his wrist to stop him and touched the steel to absorb it, and punched him away. Slowly, the criminals kept coming at him with weapons trying to kill, maim and hurt him. Kevin knew that he couldn't keep this up for ever, but he couldn't make his way out of the attacking crowd. Luckily he wouldn't need to as a loud 'BANG!' rang through the courtyard. All the criminals including Kevin turned to see who had fired the gunshot.

"EVERYONE FREEZE WHERE YOU ARE" yelled Magister Ghalil from the entrance of the courtyard holding a laser gun pointing in the air, alongside him was, to Kevin's relief, Ben, Gwen, Cooper and an entire army of plumbers.

The entire courtyard seemed to explode with chaos as criminals, instead of obeying orders, ran for their luck, whilst some remained behind to try and fight off the real plumbers. Even the prostitutes, fake plumbers and the fake warden scrambled away.

The real plumbers, including Magister Ghalil, ran after all the criminals trying to escape and fighting any of them who attacked. Igazi tried to pick up the suitcase containing the golden cube but had to fight off chance taking criminals who tried taking it from him. He got frustrated and pulled out his gun and started shooting at anyone who came near him. Slowly as gunshots were being fired and bodies were dropping, Kevin tried to make his way through the chaotic crowd towards his friends avoiding Igazi's firing shots. Unfortunately for Igazi while shooting off criminals around him, one of the prostitutes managed to seize the case from his arm, swallow the cube and make a run for it. As soon as Igazi noticed, he ran after her.

"Humongousaur!" came Ben as Kevin reached them.

"Ben we need to go after that Creep" said Kevin pointing to Igazi running after a woman in front of him.

"Okay, Gwen, Cooper, you two try and keep the criminals from escaping, there are various ships in the hangar that they can use to escape, and we can't let that happen, Kevin and I will go after that gangster" said Ben in his deep dinosaur voice.

Before Kevin ran off after Igazi, he glanced at Gwen who returned his look. But there was no time in that moment to say anything to each other. He reluctantly looked away from her as she ran with Cooper and he ran and joined Ben in his pursuit of Igazi.

"Perfect timing" came Kevin catching up to Ben.

"Like always" said Humongousaur.

They both carried on running until they almost caught up with Igazi, and Humongousaur swung his giant tail at Igazi who jumped up, avoiding it. An angry humongousaur smashed the ground whilst still running after Igazi which broke the floor, tripping Igazi a few steps ahead of them and he fell to the ground finally.

"Useless, pieces of shit, you can't do anything to me" Igazi said trying to get up.

He took out a gun and fired several shots at Kevin and Ben, who avoided the bullets by zigzagging around. Ben and Kevin were closing in on Igazi but before they could reach for him, Igazi finally grabbed the sex worker running away from him and pulled her in front of him. She screamed as Igazi forced the barrel of his gun inside her mouth.

"Don't come any closer Kevin Eleven, or I'll blow her brains out of her head" he said backing away.

"Ben stop!" said Kevin stretching out his arm to stop Ben as Humongousaur from going any further.

They both looked at Igazi as Ben turned back into himself, Igazi had a sadistic look on his face.

"It's just like all of you people isn't it, so may weaknesses, why are you willing to let me go to protect this whore, she's not a good girl at all is she, she's also a thief like me, you're all pathetic" he said shaking the woman with his free hand; tears were sliding down her face and she probably looked for the first time like an innocent woman.

He continued backing away from them and, when Ben flinched involuntarily towards his ultimatrix, Igazi pushed the barrel of the gun a further inside the prostitute's mouth and the woman looked like she was choking.

"Igazi stop please, we'll let you go if you just give her to us" begged Kevin seeing the frightened look on the woman's face.

"Unfortunately, she has something of mine inside of her and I need it back".

"She's a human being, not some of your cargo" said Ben trying to reason with him.

"Save your guilt tripping for someone with a heart, your making me sick, now if you come after me, I'll kill her" he said throwing the woman over his back.

Igazi turned around and ran with her on his back while Ben and Kevin stood helplessly watching furiously as Igazi made his way to the exit of the Null Void.

"Ben which one of your aliens can go invisible?" said Kevin desperately but before Ben could answer an explosion went off in the crowd of criminals caught in the chaos and they were both knocked off their feet. After getting back up, the courtyard was a mess of people trying to make sense of what just happened when… Kevin saw Cooper lying on the ground and Gwen, still conscious, being carried away on Revenna's back who had somehow gained her strength back and no longer looked in pain.

"KEVIN!" she screamed trying to fight Revenna off but her annodite powers weren't working on Revenna. Kevin felt his heart being pulled from his chest as he realised that Gwen was being taken away. He had no time to think, he just ran as fast as he could after Revenna who broke into a fast run, still in her pencil thin high heels, seeing Kevin after her. Kevin found it difficult to run as fast as he could through the large crowd some of who were also trying to get out of the prison and the plumbers who were trying to stop them.

Revenna ran left, out of the crowd, and towards the outside hangar and Kevin continued running after her and absorbed the concrete walls of the prison and broke pieces of the concrete of the walls and tried aiming them at Revenna's head. Gwen was still putting up a fight, trying to kick her or get herself loose enough to slip off of his back but he held onto her even tighter. "Let me go!" she said struggling against her captor.

Kevin decided last-minute not to throw the concrete slabs at Revenna in fear that he might hurt Gwen.

"GET BACK HERE REVENNA"he yelled after her

"Why don't you come and get me first, baby" she said to him still running in front of him.

Revenna made it to the hangar of the Null Void prison where Igazi was about to take off and Kevin saw Ben as Ultimate Big Chill flying towards the spaceship that Igazi was about to fly off in, with the woman he kidnapped inside the ship.

"C'mon, Revenna, let's go!" Igazi yelled after her, as she carried on running with Kevin almost on top of her, so she threw more bombs behind her which exploded as they hit the ground, slowing Kevin down to try and dodge them.

As Revenna made it onto the ship and closed the doors, Ultimate Big Chill blew fire from his breath that immediately froze the entire hangar, trapping the ship inside. But Igazi fired up the engine, which melted and broke off from the ice and the ship smashed out of the roof and took off in lightning speed, with a frustrated Ben and Kevin exclaiming out loud in anger. The 'Futha gang' had kidnapped his girlfriend and had another hostage with them, and he didn't know where they were headed…


	11. Chapter 11: In Pursuit

Chapter 11: In pursuit

THE NULL VOID

"Ben, they've taken her away"

Ben, who flew down from the ceiling of the hangar, transformed back into himself from Ultimate Big Chill and ran to where Kevin was standing.

"What?" said Ben frustrated; he hated it when the enemy got the best of him.

"Gwen, they've taken here with them, we need to go after them right now" said Kevin urgently.

"Oh my God, we need to tell the rest of the plumbers"

"There's no time for that, we'll lose them and we don't know where they're going"

Ben contemplated this for a while before nodding his head at Kevin. "Okay, let's go, we'll explain to them later" he said as he and Kevin ran back to the courtyard.

"Now, we need to find Cooper, so he can fly us there" said Ben as calmly as he could manage even though the panic was threatening to overwhelm him. He and Kevin searched frantically through the crowd of plumbers, criminals, prostitutes, and the fake warden running away and fighting with the law until Kevin, being slightly taller than Ben, spotted him trying to force a prisoner onto the ground. Kevin ran as fast as he could to Cooper.

"Cooper, we need to get out of here now, Gwen's been kidnapped by two of the escaped gangsters and we need to give chase right now".

Cooper with a shocked face, forced the criminal into the hands of another nearby plumber and said "Here, I need to go somewhere" and took off with Kevin, and Ben followed after them.

"Where did you guys land when you got here?" asked Kevin still running with Ben and Cooper.

"Just outside the teleporter beam" said Cooper.

"What?" said Kevin stopping immediately

"What's wrong?" asked Cooper

Kevin shook his head in alarm, "We can't get out of here then if you landed outside the teleporter beam".

"Why not?" asked Cooper.

"Because, It only goes one way, we can beam in but not out" said Ben remembering when he and Gwen came to the prison to find Kevin as a monster trying to get revenge on Morgg.

"Can't we go to the hangar and go around?".

"That'll take too long" said Kevin panicking; there was nothing more frustrating to him than being in a rush and having things to do that take too long…

EN ROUTE TO PLANET MECKA

Gwen struggled against the ropes binding her to a chair in a spaceship she didn't recognise. She had been kidnapped by Revenna when she threw a bomb at her in the Null Void courtyard along with a young prostitute that Igazi had kidnaped because she swallowed his golden money cube. Now she was bound up in the far corner of the ship, where she heard her captor having a heated argument about something.

"…All your fault, you didn't kill Kevin Eleven, and now once again because of your fuck ups, we'll be punished! I'm tired of your failures, it's not like you" said an angry Igazi

"It wasn't my duty to make sure someone killed him, you were told to bring his head back to Mecka, besides I've got his girlfriend, so he'll be back for her" said Revenna

"We're screwed, Revenna, 'Sir' will kill us for sure"

"It doesn't have to be that way" she said looking at him in the eyes, "We don't have to go back to him, look we've got the golden cube inside that whore" she pointed to the prostitute sitting in another chair. "This means we'll have all the money we want, forever".

"Don't be a stupid bitch, Revenna, Morgg will find us in a heartbeat, you know he hates traitors more than anything" he said slapping her hands off of his charred face.

"I can't do this anymore Igazi, I don't—

"What are you saying?" he interrupted "Choose your words wisely" he said in a dangerous tone.

She was about to respond but screamed out in pain and clutched her abdomen; she fell of her chair and lay crumpled in a ball on the cold floor of the ship. "Fuck, that bastard Morgg killed my insides" she yelled in pain.

"You deserve it, you failed him" said Igazi simply sitting on his chair and flying the ship, not even trying to help her.

Gwen tried with all her might to reach her plumber's badge inside her school satchel but the rope binding her was too tight. After struggling for a while, she wanted to give up but, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a jagged piece of metal sticking out of the stand where a fire hydrant was placed, but it was too far for her to reach with her body, but it was close enough for the other woman to reach.

"Pssst, hey, excuse me" she whispered to the terrified prostitute.

The woman just looked at her but didn't respond. "There is a piece of metal right next to you, try and cut your rope with it" she whispered. The young woman looked at the piece of metal and turned back to Gwen and shook her head at her.

"Ei can' doo eet , no!" she said in a thick accent and in broken English. Her entire body was literally shaking in fear.

"Why not? Asked Gwen still whispering. The woman just shook her head and tears started falling from her face; Gwen could see that she was way beyond afraid and that she felt hopeless; all the bravery she needed to carry out her work as a sex worker didn't prepare her for the bravery she needed right at that moment.

"What the fuck are you two talking about back there?" asked Revenna after stabbing herself with another needle. She stood up looking much better and out of pain and approached the two of them. Gwen looked away from her but she still didn't feel afraid of her. Revenna looked at the prostitute and then at Gwen; she lifted Gwen's face and observed her for a while.

"I don't know what Kevin sees in you, you're nothing but a plain, preppy girl. Daddy will be so worried about his little girl you when you don't come home won't he? That's what Kevin probably sees in you all the money you have, he just wants all the money you private school paying parents have, and your piece of ass". Gwen didn't look at Revenna but she tried to control her anger.

"Revenna get back in your seat, we'll be landing soon" said Igazi from the front of the ship.

Revenna looked one last time at Gwen and punched her in the face, and went to the prostitute and did the same thing, knocking them out both before taking her seat for landing…

THE NULL VOID PRISON

"What are we gonna do now, we can't stop or we'll lose them" said Ben still trying not to let panic get to him. Kevin covered his hands in his face in frustration before he thought of a plan.

"The warden" he said simply

"What about him? He's a fake" said Cooper.

"Yes but he'll know how to override the system so the teleporter will go both ways, stay here, I'm coming back" he said already sprinting away leaving a confused Ben and Cooper behind...

Kevin knew exactly where he might find the corrupt warden if he was trying to escape. He ran down to the mine shafts hidden to the plumbers until Morgg's arrest a while ago and pressed level '-1' on the elevator. When he got down he sprinted towards the hidden tunnel he used to escape the prison years ago with Kwarrel's help, and heard footsteps hurrying to get away. He absorbed the concrete wall and revealed himself to the fake fat warden.

"Freeze, don't take one more step imposter" he said behind the fake warden.

The warden turned around and fired a shot directly at Kevin but it only grazed him because of his absorption of the concrete.

"What are you?" he asked afraid now of Kevin's powers.

"I'm a human-osmosian plumber, Kevin Ethan Levin and you're coming with me, right now" he said advancing on the warden and taking his laser gun away. "Get moving"

After what felt like an eternity, Kevin arrived back to Ben and Cooper with the warden walking in front of him with his hands in the air and Kevin behind him pointing his gun at him.

"I found him in the underground tunnel where Morgg had prisoners mining drugs again" said Kevin to Ben and Cooper.

"Now, let us out of here" he said threateningly to the fake warden.

"You can't do that, It only goes one way" he said spitefully.

"Why do you think we brought you here?" asked Kevin, "Now do it"

"You guys are plumbers, I know you won't shoot me" said the fake warden feeling confident.

Kevin fired a shot at him with the wardens own gun he had confiscated from him and it hit him in the foot with a single BANG! echoing through he halls, and the fake warden howled in pain; even Ben and Cooper didn't think he would do it.

"Kevin, we can't shoot criminals unless they're going to kill us, you're going too far" said Cooper by the book.

"DO YOU THINK I CARE? I'M TIRED OF THESE GANGSTERS RUINING MY LIFE AND WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW" yelled Kevin, letting out all the anger and frustration he had been harboured for a while.

"Get going" he yelled to the warden who limped to the control desk in pain and took out a card from his pocket and ran it through the scanner. Immediately, the teleporter beam lit up.

"It's working let's go" said Ben as all three young plumbers stood on the platform and the teleporter beamed them outside.

"There's the ship" said Ben but Cooper stopped them.

"No let's take my ship, it's smaller and faster than the bigger plumber ships" he said pointing to a ship a distance away.

They ran to the ship and immediately got to action. Cooper fired up the ship and blasted a hole in the dimension of the Null Void prison to get them out. Once they were out, they rocketed out of Earth's orbit and into space. Once there Cooper tried to locate the ship that Igazi was flying.

"Can we get a signal from their ship?" asked Ben.

"I'm trying to isolate it to find it; there are millions of other ships flying in this universe and I need to find the right one".

"We'll hurry up, they could be torturing her by now, or they could necklace her because she's a plumber!" said Kevin frustrate again.

"I'm trying; I can't fly and try to find their ship".

"Give me the wheel" said Kevin standing next to Cooper who took off his seatbelt and walked to the giant radar screen.

"Guys I know that we're stressed but we need to calm down, so we can think rationally, of which I just did" he said only then thinking of a brilliant idea.

"What is it?" asked Kevin and Cooper at the same time.

"We can track her through her plumber's badge, unlike Kevin who left his behind so we couldn't track him, Gwen has hers with her".

They both looked at Ben with extreme delight.

"Tennyson, I could kiss you right now" said Kevin enthusiastically.

"Yeah, me too" said Ben displaying his ego. After getting the coördinates from Kevin and Cooper's plumber's badge, they finally found where she was heading.

"There, it is, but it looks like the ship that her kidnappers landed on, is in empty space" said Cooper.

"Yes, it's the hidden planet that I asked you to find for us, do you still have its location?" asked Ben.

"Yes, and I know exactly how we're going to get inside" said Cooper confidently. But before anyone could say anything else, someone appeared on Cooper's screen. It was Helen and she looked like a woman on a mission.

"Guys, everyone here at the plumber's academy is buzzing about a raid that you're carrying out at the Null Void prison". She said to them.

"Yes, but we're not there anymore, were actually on our way to get some of the gangsters right now" said Ben.

"I want in, I want to help" she said sounding determined. They all looked at each other reluctantly before Ben said "Helen, this is dangerous and you're still a rookie".

"These people killed my brother in the most merciless way and I want to help take them down" she said ready to start a fight with them if they refused her.

"Then you know that you can't do this because it's too personal, and it might interfere with your professionalism, this isn't about revenge" said Cooper.

"Too late, I'm already behind you guys" she said and they all looked at the radar screen to find her ship flying behind them. They couldn't argue with her anymore because she wasn't about to listen to them but they had to keep an eye on her so she didn't get consumed by her anger and thirst for revenge…


	12. Chapter 12: Final Showdown

Chapter 12: The final Showdown

UNDERGROUND STUDY ROOM ON PLANET MECKA

Gwen woke up with a headache, but tried to open and focus her eyes. She found herself on the floor of a dark room. It looked like an old study with its few armchairs and an old study desk. She managed to prop herself up against the old and burned study desk. She saw that the woman she was kidnapped with was not in the room with her, but looking around she saw someone sitting in a chair in the corner of the dark room. She recognised his overconfident demeanour, his black eyes boring into her soul and his selfish greed written all over his face. He calmly stood up and approached her when he saw that she was finally awake. Gwen looked directly at him and he stared straight at her unblinking. She tried to show him that she wasn't afraid of him.

"Morgg, where have you brought me?" she asked as confidently as possible.

"Welcome Gwendolyn, to the basement of my hideout planet, my entire planet conquered by me, after we won a gang war, after you and your teammates thought that you had finally gotten rid of me" he said in his calm tone.

"I'm not afraid of you Morgg, and you will get the justice that all of your victims deserve from you"

"Is that so, well, you may be right because one of my security probes did pick up a signal outside our orbit, it seems like your rescue party is on their way". Morgg didn't at all seem fazed by this. "But, that's okay because once all of you are here on this planet; we can finish you once and for all".

"I'm not afraid of you" she said confidently to him.

"Don't try and be brave here, little girl, this isn't the place to try and defy me" he said crouching down to her level and nearing his face towards hers.

"Here, we play by my rules" he seized a fistful of her hair and pulled it, as she screamed out in pain. He held a fist of her red hair and threw it in the corner. He clicked his fingers to summon Igazi and another alien named Kain who resembled Ben's transformation 'Four Arms' He looked at her one last time before leaving. Igazi and Kain pulled out a bucket of dirty water and seized Gwen's head, they shoved her head into the water and placed an electric rod inside of which electrocuted her, her screams came out as bubbles in the water. They did this to her again and again and again until she passed out.

OUTSIDE PLANET MECKA'S ORBIT

"Here we go I've planted a virus into one of the lasers so that it can shut down the cloaking device" said Cooper firing the laser in the direction of where the planet was supposed to be. Within minutes the planet slowly started to reveal itself.

"Okay, great, by the way I've just called the plumbers, they'll be here soon as—" Ben was cut off by his shock and surprise at what he saw on the planet slowly starting to take form. Both he and Cooper gasped as they took a closer look at how the planet looked inside it's atmosphere.

"Is that pollution, oh my God, and dead bodies?" asked Ben horrified.

"Yes, unfortunately guys, you have to brace yourselves for what you're going to see on this planet, it's not good" said Kevin. "Although there seems to be more bodies than I remember last time".

"It must be from the gang war that they fought, It looks like your old gang won" said Ben.

"I just can't believe the sheer scale of murdered people, its insane" he said as they broke into the atmosphere and landed Cooper's ship behind a derelict building in the city centre with Helen's ship arriving behind them.

"How, are we going to get to Gwen's location" asked Cooper looking at the plumbers badge.

"We'll have to sneak in, but it's no use, they already know that we're here, the airspace of this place is covered in security" said Kevin.

"But it looked like this place let us in" said Ben; he was trying not to throw up because of the bodies littered on the ground.

"It's probably Morgg and his doing. Let's go around back so we can walk through the hallway to her location" said Kevin.

UNDERGROUND STUDY ROOM OF PLANET MECKA

When Gwen woke up after her torture, she felt so weak that she couldn't move, she noticed that she wasn't bound up by the rope anymore. All she could hear was the screaming and wailing of another woman in the same room as her. Revenna was sitting right next to Gwen, chained to the wall, and on the floor. She was in complete agony huffing and puffing at her pain; she clutched her abdomen in pain and was shaking all over her body. As much as Gwen didn't like Revenna, she couldn't sit around and listen to her pain.

"Hey, Revenna is it, are you okay?" asked Gwen silently trying to get her strength back

"Just shut the hell up, I don't need to hear your voice on top of everything else"

"I don't care; no one deserves to be treated like this".

"What do you know, you're just a preppy rich girl, you know nothing about real life, some of us have had to struggle from the beginning".

"What do you mean, why are you struggling so much?"

"I was born on planet earth in a place known as the Balkans" Revenna said through small gasps.

"Yes, that's where a few of Kevin's human descendants come from" said Gwen trying to keep the conversation going

"My human mother gave me up when my alien father left her and went back to his home planet. She gave me up to a cruel woman living next door to her and left me. The woman abused me daily with her husband who sexually abused me until I had to run away and fend for myself, and Kevin helped me, we joined the Futha gang together with Igazi"

"It's not your fault Revenna, I know that you're just a victim of a neglected society" said Gwen

"Don't think that you know who I am because of what your fancy schooling taught you. My life can't be learned from a textbook" she said.

"I just want to help you, you don't have to live like this, you have a choice. I heard in your spaceship that you didn't want this kind of life anymore and you don't have to, you can get away from it and start afresh just like Kevin".

"This is the life of a gangster, you either get killed or land up in jail, so Morgg left me here to die". She kept quiet for a while before exclaiming in pain again, Gwen saw blood seeping out of her jumpsuit above her tail. She gave herself another injection shot which looked like her last one to relieve the pain. Then both heard voices outside the door.

"The surveillance shows that Ben Ten and company are nearby" said someone.

"Good let them come. Meanwhile bring this bitch to me" he said and Morgg burst through the door with some thugs dragging the cowering prostitute and placed her on the floor with Gwen and Revenna...

"Guys I can hear voices" said Cooper as he Ben, Kevin and Helen continued behind the wall towards the study room where Gwen was being kept. They were a corridor away when Cooper said "but, we can't go in there now, people are in there with her right now".

"We'll have to wait for the most opportune moment" said Ben.

"Is this her?" they heard Morgg say.

"Yes" said someone inside.

"Then get it out of her, I need that cube!" said Morgg walking out and up the stairs into the basement.

"No, plees don' keel me, I'll ge' your coobe baack" the prostitute begged in her broken English.

They all heard a woman scream followed by three loud 'BANGS!' of a gunshot that echoed through the underground study and filtered through the halls. Ben, Kevin,Cooper and Helen all looked at each other with eyes wide open and breaths held. They had heard gunshots but didn't know who had just been shot.

Gwen closed her eyes as the women next to her was shot at point-blank range in her forehead and had died instantly. They placed her body on top of the desk and to Gwen's horror, started cutting her stomach open to find their precious cube. This was too much for Gwen to handle. She let out a scream after scream that made her eyes glow a bright pink and broke the inhibitor cuffs around her wrists.

As Kevin and the others heard Gwen's screams, they knew that they couldn't wait any longer, it sounded like she was being tortured. They all ran to the room and burst open the door just to hear another bang from the same room. They saw two of Morgg's cronies lying on the floor and Gwen, who's eyes were glowing a bright pink, holding out her hand to them. She had just broke loose from the inhibitor bracelet and had blasted the men into the wall.

"Gwen, you're okay!" said Ben running up to hug his cousin.

"How did you get out of your bracelet?" asked Kevin cautiously, they weren't exactly still on good terms.

"I couldn't take it, what they did to her, so my manna just, did it" she said taking off her school jersey and placing it over the woman's lifeless face after she closed the woman's eyes.

"Okay guys, we need to get out of here now before anyone comes down here and checks on Gwen" said Helen.

"She's right, we can't make a stand here without the plumbers backup, there's too many gangsters here and this is their home turf" said Ben

"That's not going to work" said Revenna sitting on the floor. "They already know you're here, this planet is heavily guarded".

"You got that right" said a voice behind them.

They all froze and turned to see the man who had started it all in the parking lot of Prosperity City a while ago, pointing his gun at them along with a few other gangsters.

"Put your hands up and follow me all of you" he said.

They had no choice but to follow Igazi up the stairs and into a brown, dingy basement room crowded with gang members. They all stopped and looked at them all as they walked in. Morgg, finally had them all where he wanted them.

"Kevin step forward" said Morgg. Kevin did as he was told to avoid any fighting, it wasn't just him in danger anymore, he now had to think about the rest of his friends.

"Gent's we all remember Kevin Eleven don't we?" the basement full of gangsters laughed and murmured in agreement.

"Tell, me Kevin, just how many people did you kill when you were eleven years old?". Kevin remained silent but Gwen said "Don't listen to him Kevin, he's just trying to guilt you".

"You're one of us Kevin and you know it, just think of what we could give you, all the money, drugs, sex and power you want, we know that Osmosians can't resist power, something that your girlfriend can't give you".

Before anyone else could say anything more, footsteps coming up the basement caught everyone's attention. The footsteps came closer until… they revealed Magister Ghalil.

"What's going on here?" he said pointing his gun to the crowd. Kevin and the gang sighed in relief when they saw the magister, but something was off about him, he didn't seem to be threatening any of the gang members but walked up to Morgg casually.

"What are you doing? We had an agreement, you're not supposed to hurt the kids" said Magister Ghalil. They all stood there in shock and disbelief as they witnessed their Chief Magister who was in charge of their quarter of the galaxy standing next to Morgg.

"You traitor, how could you do this" asked Kevin his hands shaking in fury.

"I needed the money from the drug trade, its simple" said the Magister.

Helen made a move to attack Morgg but Ben, Cooper and Gwen stopped her.

"How could you, you let my brother die, it's your fault Pierce is dead" she screamed at him. Ben, Gwen and Cooper had a hard time restraining her. The magister walked away and Igazi started talking to Kevin again.

"What do you say, we'll be like old pals again, you don't think your teammates actually care about you do you, they're rich educated, and would be the first to leave you if they found out about your crimes. For the last time, what do you say?"

Kevin looked at Igazi for a while, deep in his dead, soulless eyes… and punched him. He swung so hard at the side of his face that Igazi fell backwards. The entire dungeon of gangsters all came at once at Kevin and friends. Gwen made a manna shield to surround everyone from the gangsters so that Ben could transform into Jet Ray, and Kevin can absorb the material of the walls and Cooper could build a robot hand on his hand using his eyes.

"I don't know how long I can keep this up" said Gwen struggling to keep the shield intact from the many gangsters who tried to break it.

"That's okay we can't fight them off like this, we need to get to the surface so we're not cornered" said Ben.

He looked at Helen. "Helen you take Gwen and Kevin and run as fast as you can out of here, try and find an exit somehow and I'll grab Cooper with my tail and try to fly out of here".

"Okay, everyone ready?" They all nodded "Let go" yelled Ben and Gwen let go of the shield.

Immediately bullets started raining from the sky and big gangsters were pouncing on them from left to right. Helen being super-fast grabbed Gwen and Kevin under her arms and sped off within a blink of an eye in the direction of a ladder she saw heading upwards with Ben as Jet Ray flying right behind them.

"There, go to the ladder, it will get us to the surface" yelled Kevin to Helen

As she headed in the direction of the ladder, she was tripped by someone and she, Gwen and Kevin went flying into the air because of their incredible speed they were going. They all hit the ground in different places and were surrounded by gangsters. Meanwhile Ben was shot out of the sky as Jet Ray fell to the ground with Cooper still on his tail. As he hit the ground, he transformed into ultimate Humongousaur and started blasting the surrounding gangsters with his giant gun hands.

Kevin, before getting up absorbed the concrete floor and punched the gangsters surrounding him, also sending them flying. Gwen made a whip out of her manna and began to lasso the gang members and throwing them far.

Morgg, who only had his evil eyes on Kevin, took out a giant laser gun and shot a beam of energy at him. It lit up the room as it headed towards him, everyone in its path had to duck to avoid it. For Kevin there was no time to think, he had no choice but to absorb it, and almost instantly dark circles appeared under his eyes.

"Kevin, not too much, remember last time" said Gwen from behind. Kevin fought with his osmosian instincts not to let the power go to his head, he was already struggling as he could already feel the insatiable need for more power, but he looked at his friends and a distant screaming man in his head, he blasted the absorbed energy into the crowd of gangsters and some of the energy ricocheted and hit a gas tank which exploded into a fiery ball and knocked everyone off their feet. The whole place was on fire and gangsters ran out for their lives in every direction.

"Get out of here, let's go" yelled Ben to his teammates, and transforming back into himself as the fires started licking up the walls and surrounding them in the basement room. They all started running out as rusted pipes began bursting and falling from the roof. Some of the gangsters who weren't deterred by the fire still gave them chase. A long steel pipe from above them started falling in front of them, blocking their path with fire. Ben transformed into water hazard and doused the fire on the pipe so they can get away. Magister Ghalil, Morgg and Igazi were nowhere in sight.

They almost made it to the ladder when someone grabbed Kevin from behind.

"I'm going to kill you Kevin Eleven" Igazi said pulling him to the floor. Gwen instinctively tried to shield Kevin with her manna but Kevin told them to continue going.

"Just go, I'll take care of this guy" he said as they all reluctantly ran towards the ladder. The smoke almost made it impossible to breathe. Kevin wrestled Igazi on the floor but threw him off. They both stood up and stared at each other the once two best friends who had thieved together, were now at opposite sides.

"I guess this is finally where it ends" said Kevin.

Igazi who didn't respond but exclaimed in anger and ran at Kevin's neck and tilted his head back trying to snap it with his bare hands. Kevin absorbed the necklace on Igazi's neck and warped his hands into a giant hammer and smashed Igazi's face who fell to the ground but stood back up again quickly with his broken nose bleeding. Kevin, who didn't think that Igazi would get up so quickly was caught by surprise and Igazi picked him up and repeatedly punched him in the face, then he picked him up again and was about to throw him into the surrounding fire. Kevin couldn't loosen Igazi's grip on him, he knew that if he didn't do something soon, he would be killed...

'BANG!' came the shot of a gun and Igazi's grip loosened on him. Igazi fell over and clutched his shoulder to see who had shot him.

"Revenna? What the hell are you doing?" he asked unable to keep the shock from his burned face. She didn't respond but shot him repeatedly with a 'BANG, BANG BANG BANG!' all over his body and looked into his now empty eyes. Kevin looked up at Revenna in surprise who was still looking at Igazi's body with hatred. He wasn't sure if she was going to shoot him but he took a chance and stood up. She watched him stand up but didn't move herself.

"Thank you" he said.

"Get out of here" she said looking at him.

Kevin started running and she followed behind him. They had to jump dodge falling ceiling, and run through the fire which had almost engulfed the entire room. As they were running, they saw the young rookie who Kevin had spoken to his heartbroken grandfather when the rookie joined the gang. He was holding a gun in his hand.

"D- D- don't mo..ove' he said sounding frightened.

Kevin looked straight at him with his trembling gun in his hand.

"If you're going to shoot, us then do it, do it now! come on do it!" he yelled and the Rookie lowered the gun in fear of Kevin and Revenna.

"If you wanted to shoot us, you would have done so already, now come with us, so we can get out of here". The rookie nodded and followed behind them.

They finally reached the ladder, after dodging all the fire, that all his teammates were climbing and were already halfway when Revenna saw something out of the corner of her eye: a bag full of drugs they called dream dust lying inside a cabinet on fire. The fire hadn't reached it yet and she stopped running and stared at it. Kevin who was about to climb the ladder, saw her and pulled her towards him.

"Leave it behind Revenna, it's not worth your life". She looked at him for a while, like she hadn't done in a long time and reluctantly ran away.

They had all made it to the ladder and stared climbing with Kevin and Revenna just underneath him. Suddenly more shot came from beneath them and as they looked down, they saw a surviving gang member shooting at them, it was Chopper, the small but strong gang member who had assaulted Kevin in his kitchen.

"Climb faster" yelled Kevin trying to dodge the bullets. But unfortunately one of the bullets hit someone… Cooper who was halfway up, was hit on is back and fell…

"COOPER!" yelled Gwen and Helen after him as she helplessly watched him falling.

"HELP ME!"he screamed. He yelled for someone to help him and Kevin extended his arm but slipped, so Cooper missed his hand. He tried to make his robot catch the wall but it was too late. He fell into the inferno below them, on top of Choppa as the fire swallowed the both of them. Kevin felt his heart harden as Gwen, who saw Cooper fall into the fire started screaming, followed by Helen.

"Get her out of here" yelled Kevin from below and Ben who had reached the top, started pulling a crying Gwen, Helen, and the rookie out of the tunnel ladder.

Kevin who was still way below the others with Revenna right below him continued climbing but noticed that the fire was burning the bottom of the ladder.

"Kevin, the fire's coming" said Revenna panicking. They both raced to the top with the fire slowly rising up to meet them. Another blast from the side and fire burned Kevin's hand and Revenna's leg. They both exclaimed out in pain as Kevin reached the top and stepped outside helped by his friends. All that was left was for Revenna to come up.

"Revenna, climb up you're almost there" said Kevin reaching out his hand so she could grab it but she was badly hurt.

"I can't, my leg is burned" she said in pain. They were all panicking as the tunnel could explode any minute. Kevin lied down on his stomach and reached out his hand to her "C'mon Revenna grab my hand, please" he begged her.

"No, Kevin, I can't I don't have a life past this, I can't go on, I'm not like you" she said

"Revenna stop it, I've seen you changing, you deserve a second chance, now take my hand" he yelled.

She stared at him with tears coming down from her pale face as she let go of the ladder, closed her eyes, crossed her arms across her chest, wrapped her tail around her body and fell into the fire as the last explosion blasted the tunnel into flying debris. Kevin pulled his hand out in time and they all scattered away to avoid being hit by flying pieces of concrete along with civilians and other gang members who had made it to the top. Ben slapped the ultimatrix and turned into Ultimate Big Chill who blew out fire that froze the building. He flew around the building until all that was left was smoke and debris lying around the now ice building and flew down to turn back into himself.

The whole team, dirty, smoked and sweaty and burned walked to one another and hugged each other. The grief of losing Cooper was overwhelming them, and for Kevin having Revenna give up on herself when he saw that she wanted to change, burned inside him. Helen, and Gwen were still crying and Kevin let go of everyone else to hug Gwen and embrace her tightly. Ben put his arms around Helen and she cried on his shoulder. Kevin listening to Gwen's cries couldn't help but let tears fall down his face as well, it was all over but it came at such a high cost, the guilt of having Cooper and Revenna die for him was eating at him.

When he let go of Gwen he walked up to the Rookie, who looked away nervously at him.

"Go and find your grandfather, he needs you to be there for him" he said.

"I don't think so, I killed my mother to be in this gang and now" he started sobbing "He'll never forgive me".

"He will, just trust me, and stop with this gang life" said Kevin seizing the necklace and charms around his neck and breaking it off. The rookie thanked him and headed towards the crowd of people gathering at the city centre. Kevin saw the boy find his grandfather and they both embraced looking teary eyed. It made him long to also see his family.

All of a sudden a loud noise caught their attention, it came from above them. They all looked up to see plumbers ships landing in the city and the intergalactic task team unit jumping out of the ships and parachuting their way to the ground. Within minutes they had the entire city covered and were arresting the surviving gang members and were giving everyone gas masks for the toxic air. Ben and his gang headed for the ships.

They gave Ben and the team some gas masks and one of the plumbers directed them to a spaceship parked nearby and they all walked to it. As they were walking they passed a few plumbers who were arresting Morgg and taking him away. They all exchanged hateful glances at the most evil man they had ever met who to their fury looked satisfied. Kevin and probably the rest of the team had to work hard to hold back from trying to attack him. They walked away to the ship they had been told to go to and it opened for them. As they got in they took off their gas masks and saw someone standing by the captain's chair. Someone they all needed to see at that moment.

"Do you guys need a lift to plumber headquarters for debriefing?" asked Max Tennyson in full plumber uniform.

"Grandpa!" shouted Gwen and Ben at the same time running to embrace him, and after Kevin and Helen went to give him a hug as well.

"Let's get you guys out of here so you can explain yourselves" he said.

Kevin feeling slightly happier than he had, smiled at Ben, Gwen and Helen and they all smiled teary eyed at each other and got in their seats to fly off, finally leaving the planet, the gang and Kevin's past behind them once and for all…

**I'm almost done, I can't believe it, you can review the story and tell me what you think if you like, before I finish it, with one last chapter...**


	13. Chapter 13: Picking up the pieces

Chapter 13: Picking up the pieces

PLUMBER HEADQUARTERS

"…Helped bring about the end of the notorious intergalactic gang, and brought about order to the Null Void and Incarcetron prisons. This includes Kevin Ethan Levin who had been accused of aiding the notorious gang but, as it has now been revealed was coerced into said 'gang activities' as the gang had threatened his loved ones. A spokesperson from the plumbers has reserved comment for the time being as they're still busy with the ongoing investigation. Not much more detail is available at this time but what we should all know is that once again Ben Ten and his team have gone beyond the necessary requirements to protect the universe, and are all heroes. Stay tuned for more details later..."

The entire plumber's headquarters near the Galvin planet broke into applause and cheered for Kevin, Ben, Gwen and Helen. They were all standing in the central room of the headquarters to listen to the official broadcast of their mission throughout the galaxy, with the rest of the organisation. For the four of them, it was a bittersweet moment hearing what they had accomplished as the sting of losing one of their skilled own, Cooper, still hung in the air. This was not made easier by the hanging of his framed picture in the plumber's academy amongst the other plumbers killed on the job on planet Shayana that they would have to see every time they came to HQ. They tried their best to smile and look humbly triumphant but the events that had unfolded were still kept afresh in their heads.

As they were about to leave, one of the plumbers told them to attend a debriefing in Magister Tennyson's office of which they left to do so.

"Grandpa?" called Ben sticking his head in the doorway.

"Yes Ben, please come in, all of you" said Max Tennyson sitting behind a big desk and pointing to four chairs he laid out for them to sit. They sat down and kept quiet, they were all caught up in their thoughts until they were disturbed by Max as he spoke to them.

"What happened on that planet, and to all of you, especially you Kevin was nothing short of a nightmare. We're so sorry for what you had to go through, none of it should have happened in the first place, and I cannot tell you how proud I am of how all of you handled the situation".

"I still feel like we failed though" said Ben bitterly

"Benjamin, what all of you did was to clean the universe of a highly organised gang, uncover all the rotten apples among the plumbers law enforcement and helped an entire planet of people get their home back. What part of that sounds like failure?"

"But at what cost, Grandpa, we lost someone, which feels like we didn't do enough" said Gwen.

"Let me tell you something, all the members of the plumbers law enforcement know and understand that they risk their lives every day to carry out the work they do. Cooper who was so skilled and talented died doing what he did best and we should honour him and his bravery by bettering ourselves and this organisation. I know what it's like to lose a teammate on duty" he said looking at Kevin as he was talking about Kevin's father "but we can't stop what we do because of death. People look to us as the people to keep the peace within the universe, and don't you forget that" said Grandpa Max.

When none of them responded he carried on. "Anyway, what I asked you guys to come here for, is to tell you about new developments on this case. Magister Ghalil, who was found alive on that planet, has been arrested for his dealings with that gang along with the other surviving gangsters. It's absolutely disgusting that we have some of our own respected plumbers on the wrong side. So, we have started a full investigation into our entire plumber membership and have established an independent investigator who will weed out the corrupt and keep on checking on the new wardens, plumbers and prisons every few months so that this level of corruption is never allowed to happen again. And as for Morgg, he has been placed in solitary confinement on his double life imprisonment sentence on a special ship made by Azmuth of the Galvin to hold him only".

Helen shook her head at this in disappointment. "Morgg doesn't deserve to be in jail, he doesn't deserve to breathe another breath because of all the lives he has destroyed and taken away, it's just not fair" she said with tears welling up in her eyes as she thought about her brother.

"Unfortunately, we have to abide by interstellar law which does not carry a death penalty clause for extremely dangerous people like him, I'm sorry, Helen, we'll have to look into that later".

They all made noises in frustration, but Kevin, feeling emotionally drained, just looked outside the window into dark empty space deep in thought. He would have liked to think that what they did helped get rid of the gang, but with Cooper gone, Morgg still alive and remembering the satisfied look on his face when he was being arrested, Kevin still felt like his old gang had won somehow. And with his knowing of Morgg, we would try and escape again. It's something he would have to look into. His thoughts turned to the inhabitants of the planet Mecka where Morgg carried out his evil work; he wondered how the inhabitants were coping on their newly freed planet.

"What will happen to the planet Mecka and all of its people?"

"Oh yes, the inhabitants of planet Azania which was its original name before Morgg took over, will be housed on planet earth and rehabilitated from drug addiction and trauma they endured, until the air on that planet can be detoxified and the planet can be brought back to its original thriving and functioning state, thanks to the intergalactic department of social upliftment who will restore plant life, water, soil and health back to the planet so the people and aliens can rebuild their lives again, and most importantly bury their dead according to their customs".

Kevin felt slightly better that the rookie on that planet would get a second chance at life, just like he did. At least someone did.

"I'll keep you updated on other incoming developments, but for now, you four need to get back to earth and recover from your ordeal" said Grandpa Max as they stood up to leave. Before Ben left he walked up to his grandfather and gave him one more hug.

"I'm so glad that you're out of retirement now and that you're our new Magister, we really need someone like you" he said.

"Thanks Ben, but it's only temporary, until we can get the plumbers back to the way it was" he said smiling to Ben. "I'll see you later".

THE LEVIN HOUSE

When they all finally arrived back on planet Earth and went back to their homes and families, Kevin got home, drained but anxious to see his mother. He opened the door and saw his mother and her man, Mr O'Connor sitting on the couch. When Mrs Levin saw her son walk into the house she immediately got up and ran to him.

"Kevin, honey, you're back" she said embracing him. "I'm so sorry that I didn't believe you, I know now that you're a hero just like your dad" she said combing his hair with her hands.

"Everything I did was to protect you, they told me that if I didn't help them steal, they would hurt you and I couldn't have that".

She shook her head and stared into the dark eyes that she gave him. "You're probably tired huh, after all you've been through"

"Yeah, but there's one thing I gotta do, just wait here mom" he said.

Kevin approached Mr O' Connor standing at the couch.

"Sir, I'm sorry for the way I treated you when we just met, especially since you're the one who was there for my other when I couldn't be, guess that I was being too selfish and I should give my mom a chance at happiness" he said.

"Thank you, I appreciate it, and I'm sorry for coming out of the blue like that expecting you to just accept me in an instant when I can clearly see that you and your mother have a very close relationship".

"How do you know that" asked Kevin.

"You're all that she ever talks about, including your difficult pasts together and your late father".

"Really? I didn't know, I thought that I would lose her to you the same way I did with her previous husband, He was the reason I ran away from home when I was a young kid. I thought that I would have to compete with you for her".

"Trust me, there's no competition" said Mr O'Connor

Kevin was starting to like this guy. Of course he looked and dressed like a corporate suited man but Kevin felt the need to give him a chance because of his mother.

"I just really want to make my mom happy and proud of me, you know".

"Then step up, and be the man that she wants you to be, and put all the alleged gangsterism behind you, and be there for her, I can already see that you're a mature young man, so keep doing what you're doing and bettering yourself and she'll see that." said Mr O'Connor

"Thanks Mr O'Connor" he smiled at him remembering that Max Tennyson had once said something similar to him. Mr O'Connor returned Kevin's smile.

"Well, I gotta get going, Evelyn I'll see you tomorrow" he said walking up to Mrs Levin while smiling and rubbing her back.

"See you," she said closing the door.

"What did you say to him Kevin Ethan Levin? you seem to be getting along with him" she said delighted but surprised.

" We just had a little talk man to man..."

BELLWOOD MEMORIAL PARK

A few days later, when finally, things slowly started to get back to normal for Ben and his team, before they could put everything behind them, they had one final task to do. And so, on a cloudy and rainy Saturday morning, Ben Gwen and Kevin wearing dark formal clothing got into Kevin's car and drove to Bellwood memorial park. They drove in silence as they felt the weight of those they had lost trying to get rid of Kevin's old gang. When they got to the cemetery, the rain had slowed down to a light shower and Gwen took out her umbrella and sheltered Ben and Kevin under it. Kevin ended up taking the umbrella and sheltering them as he was the tallest of the three. When they arrived to the grave site, they already saw a crowd of families, loved ones and general plumbers surrounding the area, waiting for the proceedings to begin. They walked to the grave site of the fallen plumbers and stood at the front of the crowd with heads bowed as they listened to a eulogy from one of the Magisters.

"Today, we honour the sacrifices and dedication of our fallen heroes in the line of duty. When we look back at what they have done for us, for the galaxy, we must remember the bravery and sacrifices they made so we can live safely in our homes. We should remember the youth of Pierce and Cooper, the best example of young talent who displayed a hunger and passion for their positions as plumber trainees and all of our remaining fallen heroes should be kept fresh in our memories, not as victims but purveyors of justice and peace in our galaxy..."

As the magister continued his eulogy, Kevin looked around the area to see the impact of the deaths on the people around them. He looked behind him and saw Helen softly crying softly on her friend Manny's shoulder standing next to her adopted parents she had shared with Pierce. She looked overcome with emotion. Kevin tore his eyes away from her and saw a heavily pregnant woman who looked just about ready to pop with her swollen belly with tears falling down her youthful face; she was standing by herself with one hand wiping her tears on a soft tissue and the other hand stroking her belly. Kevin felt his heart tighten as he realised that she was the widow of the man that Revenna had set on fire while he was trying to stop the robbery on planet Shayana.

_"Please, don't kill me I have a pregnant wife back on planet earth and she needs me_…" his words echoed through his mind along with the screaming he did while he was dying mercilessly at the hands of the two most important gang members… and himself.

The sting of guilt that Kevin felt being partly responsible for robbing an unborn child of its father and a young woman of her husband and happiness was all too great for him to bear. He couldn't help but notice that the woman was alone. He carried on looking around at the various families who had lost loved ones on planet Shayana as they were trying to arrest Revenna and Igazi; they were embracing, trying to be strong, and crying. Kevin's eyes stopped at a young boy with dark hair holding his mother's hand and looking quite oblivious to the situation. He reminded Kevin of himself, losing his father at such a young age. He wondered how the little boy would turn out after losing his father. He hoped he wasn't seeing someone who would become like his former Kevin Eleven. With his free hand that wasn't holding the umbrella over his friends, Kevin gripped Gwen's hand tightly and she responded by squeezing his as tears fell from her face.

After the eulogy Kevin asked Ben and Gwen to accompany him to another spot at the cemetery.

"Would you guys come with me somewhere?".

"Well we kind of have no choice since we only have one umbrella" said Ben.

They walked with him to another part of the cemetery where a large tree was standing tall over the park. Kevin took something out of his pocket and pinned it to the tree. It looked like a dull charm necklace.

"What's that?" asked Gwen.

"It's the necklace that belonged to Revenna; I asked one of the crime scene investigators searching that basement on planet Mecka to look for it".

"But why are you pinning it to this tree, she's the reason we got into all this mess in the first place" said Ben.

Kevin kept quiet for a while before replying. "For the longest time, she was my best friend, we both came from difficult childhoods and human-alien heritage and we looked out for each other when people who were afraid of us treated us like freaks. I was lucky enough to get out of the gang and get a second chance at life by befriending you two and moving back with my mom after I bought her a house. She wasn't so lucky though, and I saw potential in her that she wanted to change. She was so close, but in the end, she didn't think that she could do it. The choices she made, just like me, were a result of all the anger and pain and loss we endured when we were young. Cooper and the rest of the fallen plumbers are lucky that they have families to mourn them, but for people like Revenna, Argit and even that young prostitute woman killed mercilessly have no one. I'm pinning this to the tree for her and them, everyone deserves someone to love them. Rest in peace Revenna" he said looking at the tree one last time before walking away.

After walking away, with Ben and Gwen still under the umbrella, he approached another gravesite that read on its tombstone:

**"Devin Levin of Osmos V. Beloved husband, father and dedicated plumber. ****May his soul rest in peace and rise in glory"**.

Kevin stood at the foot of his father's grave and stared down at it. Gwen placed her arms around his waist and Ben placed his hands on Kevin shoulder for support as Kevin was lost in thoughts. When he was finally ready to go, and let go of his past, he left the memorial park with his best friends along side him...

THE NEXT DAY

Ben Tennyson and his team pulled up to one of their favourite spots to hangout at in Kevin's car. Kevin parked at his usual spot around their other peers who were also hanging out and also enjoyed the same place. Ben walked out of the car in routine to get what they had come for, which left Gwen and Kevin alone in the car.

"I'm so glad that everything's over now so we can finally get back to normal" said Kevin

"You realise that normal means normal. As in no more drinking for you, and no self-harming" Gwen whispered taking his hand and rubbing the scars on his wrists.

"The same goes for you, no more acting like a runaway, it scared me, you reminded me of your cousin Sunny" said Kevin.

"Really?" she asked slightly amused.

"Yeah, and a little like Jennifer Nocturne, when she- as the tabloids said- 'ran away with the older man who kidnapped her"

"That's not good, Ben and I saw her and she wasn't a pretty sight, she was totally lost in it." She said. "Hey Kevin, can I ask you something?"

"Sure"

"Did you still have feelings for her, Revenna I mean?"

Kevin thought about this. "I did, once, back in the day, but on planet Mecka or now Azania, I wanted to help her because I saw that she wanted another chance, but now I can't imagine being with anyone else but you".

She kept quiet before whispering to him "I had a pregnancy scare a few days ago and it turned out to be negative"

Kevin didn't know how to feel, he just felt numb. "You shouldn't have gone through that by yourself" he said taking her head and placing it on his broad shoulders.

"You were in jail, I had no choice. I think that we should just take things slow from now on, we were rushing everything too fast"

"You were the one riding me like a horse going too fast!" He teased.

"Kevin Levin! You know that's not what I meant!" she said blushing in embarrassment as he just laughed.

"No, I understand, we should take it one day at a time and not rush our relationship" he said sincerely.

In the meantime, give me that ring back, when you remember to bring it"

"Why?"

"Because it's mine" she said. "I'll put it in my jewellery box at home".

He kissed her cheek and was about to kiss her soft lips but was interrupted by Ben who had just come back and stuck his head in the car window on Kevin's side.

"Three mango smoothies on a chilled late Sunday afternoon in the parking lot of Mr Smoothies in Bellwood, here we go!" he said sounding too excited.

Kevin and Gwen got out of the car and took their smoothies from Ben and sat on the hood of Kevin's car with Ben joining them. Kevin temporarily got off the hood of his car and went to turn up the music on his iPod docked in his car of which their surrounding peers, also relaxing around the parking lot of the Mr Smoothies began jamming to his music, sippin' their smoothies and enjoying their day. Just as Kevin got back onto the hood and placed his free arm not holding his smoothie around Gwen, Ben had to voice his concerns.

"Can you believe that over a month ago today, we were chasing Argit in ironically named Prosperity City for stealing laser guns?" asked Ben loudly slurping his smoothie.

"Okay, moment ruined by Ben" said Gwen, putting on her sunglasses to shield the sun from her light eyes.

"I'm just saying, I'm a little concerned about Morgg's prison, I mean what's to stop him from escaping like he did last time?"

"Oh, don't you worry about Morgg escaping, I already took care of that" said Kevin satisfied.

Meanwhile on the ship near the Galvin built by Azmuth to house one of the most dangerous criminals in the galaxy. A young plumber named Helen slipped a single white envelope in the gap under the door of Morgg's cell.

Morgg, looking too pleased with himself as he was expecting a package form his gangsters containing a tool that would help him escape, opened the envelope and a small plastic teaspoon fell out onto the floor. Morgg looking surprised took out the letter inside the envelope that had come with the teaspoon and read it.

On it was written:

_Dear: Morgg_

_I found out about your plan to escape, so I took the liberty of replacing the tool you wanted with one you needed to escape. This time, I made sure that I was ahead of you. You should count yourself lucky that I didn't get to deal with you personally for all the mess you made with my family and friends or I would have shown you what I was really like as a kid. _

_Well, if you ever hope to escape, you'd better start digging..._

_Kevin Eleven_

Morgg let out a hateful scream that echoed in his tiny cell. He ran to the door and smashed his fists into it in his fury as he realised that he would have to stay there alone, in the quiet for over fifty years with his double life imprisonment sentence, being heavily guarded constantly by security, in an impenetrable ship made by the smartest being in five galaxies while three teenagers back on planet earth lived their lives and tired their best to keep the universe at peace from monsters like him...

**-THE END-**

**Thank you for reading this story, I can't believe its done, sorry for the spelling errors/grammatical errors if you spot any. You can review, critique and recommend anything if you like, but for now I have to say "N'dizanibonani Ngelinyilanga" (See ya'll later) : **


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